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Artists  and  Thinkers 


Artists  and  Thinkers 


BY 


LOUIS  WILLIAM  jFLACCUS 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


LONGMANS,     GREEN,    AND    CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  6-  30TH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON 

BOMBAY,  CALCUTTA,  AND  MADEAS 

I916 


Copyright,  19 1 6, 

BY 

LOUIS  WILLIAM  FLACCUS 


CONTENTS 


PAGES 

I.    Introductory 1-9 


II.  Rodin 10-36 

III.  Maeterlinck 37-62 

IV,  Wagner 63-103 

V.  Hegel    ...•:•••• 104-139 

VI.  Tolstoy •••••..  140-160 

VII.  Nietzsche       •....»• 161-200 


331397 


ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 


INTRODUCTORY 

Each  of  these  essays  stands  by  itself  as  a  record 
V^of  a  man's  thoughts  on  art  and  as  a  study  of  the  man 

(himself,  of  his  methods  of  work,  his  aims  and  his 
outlook  on  life.V  But  they  are  bound  together,  even 
if  only  in  the  slenderest  of  ways:  they  all  have  a 
window  open  on  a  problem.  A  philosopher  must 
have  his  problem;  his  comfort  demands  it — a  trade 
weakness,  I  admit,  but  one  in  which  I  must  confess 
a  share.  I  have  taken  my  material  from  the  border- 
line of  art  and  philosophy.  I  have  chosen  three 
artists — Rodin,  Wagner,  and  Maeterlinck — who  have 
achieved  greatness  in  such  widely  different  arts  as 
sculpture,  music,  and  the  drama;  and  three  thinkers — 
Tolstoy,  Hegel,  and  Nietzsche — who  are  quite  unlike 
and  fairly  representative.  All  these  men  have  had 
much  to  say  on  art;  they  have  discussed  special 
points  and  formulated  general  theories.  Many  of 
these  theories  are  fanciful,  unsound,  clumsy;    these 


2  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

I  have  given  as  well  as  others  which  show  remarkable 
insight.  Incidentally  I  may  have  touched  on  the 
truth  of  a  theory  or  weighed  it  historically,  but  the 
main  interest  has  been  elsewhere:  in  the  problem 
of  the  interplay  of  art  and  philosophy;  in  tracing  the 
^Thinker  in  the  Artist  and  the  Artist  in  the  Thinker."^ 

The  problem  might  be  put  brutally  in  its  most 
general  form:  Is  the  Artist  at  heart  a  Thinker,  and 
the  Thinker  an  Artist?  But  little  would  be  gained 
by  such  a  headlong  impatience  of  results.  In  a 
mechanical  puzzle  the  solution  is  the  thing.  Bits  of 
steel  must  be  twisted  about  in  a  certain  way  or  helter 
skelter  balls  of  mercury  must  be  driven  to  cover; 
the  sooner  it  is  done,  the  better.  With  scientific 
problems  it  is  much  the  same.  But  in  philosophy 
we  are  often  interested  in  the  question  rather  than 
the  answer;  in  the  whereabouts,  the  variants,  the 
ins  and  outs  rather  than  the  solution.  Not  every 
one  would  admit  as  much.  There  are  some  who  dig 
a  problem  in  with  a  spade;  they  much  prefer  to  have 
it  stay  put.  To  me  it  seems  more  important  to  get 
the  life-beat  of  a  problem  in  all  its  unruliness.  Wil- 
liam James  does  it  successfully  because  of  his  open 
mind  and  his  taste  for  the  individual:  he  indulges 
a  problem,  gives  it  free  play,  enjoys  its  waywardness 
and  uncovers  its  richness;  his  work  is  a  protest  against 
the  philosopher's  idol  worship  of  the  general  as  such. 
What  then  should  we  gain  by  asking  the  general  ques- 
tion:   Is  the  Artist  a  Thinker  and  the  Thinker  an 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

Artist?  We  might  answer  Yes  or  No;  the  result 
would  still  be  the  same:  a  washed-out  answer  to  a 
washed-out  problem.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to 
defend  the  ingenious  way  of  keeping  problems  alive 
by  linking  them  with  others  and  breaking  them  into 
a  thousand  puzzles,  offering  a  new  one  as  soon  as 
the  old  one  has  become  Hfeless.  But  I  do  wish  to 
suggest  the  liveness,  the  colorfulness  and  richness  of  . 
the  problem  of  tracing  with  some  detail  the  thought 
strain  in  certain  artists  and  the  artistic  groundwork 
of  certain  philosophies.  To  say  that  Nietzsche,  for 
instance,  is  an  artist  philosopher  amounts  to  little, 
but  it  might  be  worth  while  to  try  to  give  the  artistic  j 
quality  of  his  thought,  to  get  its  stamp,  to  disentangle  | 
some  of  the  motifs  in  which  it  is  so  rich.  It  might 
be  worth  while  to  show  parallelisms  between  Rodin's 
technique  and  his  reflections  on  art;  to  give  the  world-  ' 
view  of  a  Maeterlinck,  a  Tolstoy  or  a  Wagner  as  it 
reflects  their  imagination  and  defines  their  outlook 
on  the  world  of  art;  to  explain  Hegel's  philosophy 
as  world-romance  of  the  boldest.  ^I  realize  quite 
well  that  to  attempt  something  of  the  sort  is  to  set  out 
on  the  road  to  the  individual,  and  means  a  compli- 
cated rather  than  simplified  task.  It  would  have 
been  much  easier  to  have  given  the  ordinary  schema- 
tized interpretation  of  Nietzsche's  philosophy — a 
few  high  lights  and  a  bit  of  outline — but  why  make  so  r 
little  of  the  richness  of  a  problem?  why  lose  so  much 
by  your  haste  to  turn  it  inside  out  and  tuck  it  away? 


4  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

I  do  not,  however,  wish  to  intimate  that  I  have  made 
the  problem  yield  more  than  a  very  small  part  of  its 
wealth;  nor  do  I  propose  to  say  of  every  structural 
looseness  or  of  every  instance  of  lack  of  skill  that  the 
method  demanded  it.  The  choice  of  the  method  has 
been  intentional;  I  believe  in  its  promise  and  its 
possibilities;  but  it  would  require  a  much  more  skil- 
ful handling  than  I  can  command  to  give  more  than 
a  hint  or  two  of  these  possibihties. 

At  first  sight  philosophy  and  art  seem  to  have  little 
in  common.  The  artist  must  have  color:  every 
daubed  sketch  or  bit  of  clay  in  his  cluttered-up  studio 
is  a  call  to  the  eye  and  the  hand;  the  philosopher 
must  have  his  grey-in-grey.  One  likes  to  imagine 
the  meeting  between  Socrates  the  philosopher  and 
Parrhasius  the  painter  at  the  latter's  workshop, 
and  is  disappointed  in  Xenophon's  meagre  sketch. 
Socrates  with  that  quick,  ferreting  mind  of  his  must 
have  found  the  .artist  shallow,  and  Parrhasius  may 
well  have  thought  him  uninspired.  But,  after  all. 
the  antagonism  may  not  be  so  sharp  as  it  seems 
There  is  many  an^-artist  with  a  devil-may-care  stroke 
to  his  brush  or  pen  and  a  sincere  contempt  for  the 
tribe  of  thinkers,  who  is  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  quite 
unknown  to  himself,  a  philosopher,  and  a  poor  one 
at  that,  with  a  vague  use  of  such  terms  as  ideal, 
imitation,  character,  milieu,  and  what  not.  And 
the  philosopher  at  his  best  and  at  his  worst  is  often 
a  poet.    I  grant  you  there  is  little  poetry  in  Locke; 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

not  five  drops  of  poetic  essence  could  be  distilled  from 
his  entire  philosophy.  But  over  against  him  may  be 
set  men  like  Plato,  in  whom  the  wealth  and  color 
of  Athenian  Hfe  are  preserved  as  they  are  in  no  con- 
temporary artist;  Plotinus;  Spinoza;  and  Hegel, 
in  whom  the  sense  of  the  dramatic  and  the  grasp  of 
divine  adventure  are  unusually  strong. 

Go  a  step  farther  and  get  beyond  the  artist's  pose 
and  the  philosopher's  clannishness,  and  you  will 
find  them  both  creatively  self-expressive.  There 
the  common  bond  seems  to  lie.  While  there  are 
artists  who  are  merely  transmissive,  sensuously  and 
emotionally,  and  in  whose  art  there  is  not  the  slightest 
tinge  of  intellectual  expression;  there  are  others — 
a  majority,  I  should  say — who  react  intellectually 
as  well  as  emotionally  and  whose  work  is  shot  through 
with  thought.  There  is  more  than  swing  and  clatter 
in  KipKng,  more  than  cobblestone  verse  in  the  later 
Browning;  Rodin  thinks  with  his  chisel,  and  Klinger 
with  his  brush.  If  Rodin  had  never  jotted  down  his 
thoughts  or  allowed  himself  to  be  interviewed,  we 
should  still  feel  the  intellectual  force  of  his  work; 
if  Wagner  had  never  written  his  essays  or  letters  we 
should  feel  the  philosophy  of  Schopenhauer  throbbing 
in  the  very  music  of  Tristan  und  Isolde.  With 
philosophy  it  is  very  much  the  same.  If  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  pure  thinking  machine  it  is  the 
scientist,  not  the  philosopher.  Philosophy  might 
seem  to  have  freed  itself  once  for  all  from  its  early 


6  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

closeness  to  poetry  when  it  exchanged  the  majestic 
verse  of  a  Lucretius  or  an  Empedocles  for  a  crabbed 
terminology  and  a  jargon  not  unlike  cracked  var- 
nish, but  the  artistic  foundation  is  still  there.  The 
expression  of  self  has  simply  become  less  naive. 
This  may  be  seen  by  taking  nature  and  natural 
phenomena  as  they  appear  in  the  philosophy  of 
Empedocles,  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  Hegel. 

In  Empedocles  there  is  a  very  direct  interest  in 
nature;  the  sea  and  the  stars  flash  in  his  verse,  and 
the  panorama  of  life  is  given  with  much  of  its  color. 
iHe  seeks  to  interpret,  to  grasp  general  laws,  but  his 
/thought  has  not  worked  itself  loose  from  imagery. 
With  Marcus  Aurelius  the  interest  in  nature  is  much 
less  direct.  His  enthusiasm  for  the  universe,  the 
City  of  Zeus,  his  delicate  interpretations  of  natural 
processes  as  so  much  material  for  duty,  his  demand 
for  loyal  submission,  are  so  many  touches  to  the 
problem  of  realizing  oneself,  around  which  his  thought 
moves.  If  nature  is  more  than  an  incident  in  his 
philosophy  it  is  only  because  he  sees  its  importance 
and  understands  its  place  in  the  development  of 
common  man  and  Thinker  alike.  In  Hegel  the 
interest  in  nature  is  still  less  direct:  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  nature  becomes  a  phase  of  cosmic  self-realiza- 
tion. Enthusiasm,  imagery,  and  in  fact  anything 
that  might  suggest  the  Artist,  has  been  pressed 
beneath  the  surface,  but  what  a  subterranean  roman- 
ticism  there   is   in   this   Thinker!    With   what   an 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

artistes  imagination  he  has  seized  upon  the  dramatic 
possibilities  of  the  human  consciousness! 

If,  then,  philosophy  and  art  express  more  and  more 
indirectly  and  reflectively  certain  heart-felt  needs  and 
certain  personal  ways  of  reacting,  what  will  be  the 
result?  The  mere  asking  such  a  question  complicates 
it  immensely.  The  philosopher  must  take  himself 
seriously;  he  means  to  give  the  record  of  reality, 
and  not  the  ''  human  document ''  of  his  tempera- 
mental reaction  to  the  universe.  He  must  have  his 
objectivity  at  all  costs,  even  if  he  has  to  attribute 
to  the  universe,  as  Bergson  does,  his  own  elan  and  his 
own  plasticity.  He  regards  himself  as  the  inter- 
preter of  world-meanings,  and  not  as  a  child  on  a 
frolic.  Back  of  the  playfulness  of  a  Nietzsche  is  a 
grim  constructive  earnestness.  There  is  no  phil- 
osopher who  from  an  observer's  point  of  view  is  more 
subjective;  and  yet,  while  Nietzsche  is  fully  aware  of 
the  influence  of  his  temperament  on  his  thought  and 
is  constantly  indulging  in  self-analysis,  he  does  not 
seem  to  feel  that  such  temperamental  influences 
affect  the  truth  of  his  philosophy.  But  an  artistically 
rich  philosophy  is  not  on  that  account  true.  Still 
what  if  a  pragmatist  blocks  a  statement  like  this  by 
interpreting  truth  as  "the  sentiment  of  rationality" 
and  that  in  turn  as  so  many  ethical  and  aesthetic 
demands?  There  is  one  way  out  of  this  tangle:  the 
Thinker  may  develop  as  fine  a  sense  of  loyalty  to 
facts  as  such  as  the  scientist's,  and  still  have  an 


8  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

interpretative  Artist's  imagination  and  originality. 
It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  do,  but  it  is  not  more  difficult 
than  the  artist's  task  of  combining  idealization  and 
imitation.  The  path  from  emotional  resonance  to 
such  more  and  more  indirect  self-expression  means  a 
richer  and  a  truer  philosophy. 

But  what  of  art  and  the  resulting  complications  in 
its  field?  The  thought-strain  is  beyond  a  doubt 
strongly  present  in  much  of  modern  art:  there  is 
an  intellectual  undercurrent  in  our  architecture  and 
our  music,  and  a  great  deal  of  intellectual  symbolism 
in  our  sculpture  and  painting.  But  it  appears  most 
plainly  in  the  novel  and  the  drama.  RoUand's 
Jean  Christophe,  the  novels  of  Wells  and  Galsworthy, 
those  of  Hardy  or  Anatole  France,  flash  with  intel- 
lectual cross-lights  of  all  colors.  And  what  shall  be 
said  of  the  problem  play,  from  Ibsen  to  Brieux,  Shaw, 
Zangwill,  Hauptmann  and  Bernstein?  There  is 
everything  there:  social  theories;  social  criticism; 
intellectual  fads  and  fancies;  bits  of  biology  and 
metaphysics;  a  criss-cross  analysis  of  character. 
One  feels  constantly  a  tugging  at  the  universe  and  its 
problems.  The  question  of  the  artistic  value  of 
such  developments  is  not  one  lightly  to  be  settled. 
A  poem  like  Rabbi  ben  Ezra  gains  immensely  through 
its  intellectual  vigor;  so  does  a  play  like  Ghosts j  but 
artistic  disintegration  can  be  seen  in  Damaged  Goods^ 
The  Link,  and  The  Doctor^s  Dilemma,  and  the  col- 
lapse of  a  thought-riddled  art  can  be  imagined.    On 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

the  other  hand  an  intellectual  freshening  would  do 
our  love  poets  and  court  poets  and  war  poets  no  harm. 
The  true  value  of  thought  for  art  seems  to  me  to 
depend  on  its  indirectness  and  emotional  suggestive- 
ness.  This  is  the  r61e  it  plays  in  Rodin  and  in 
Maeterlinck.  They  make  you  feel  the  thrust  of  the 
universe.  Back  of  the  artist's  earnestness  there 
must  be  a  certain  freedom  or  playfulness,  just  as 
there  must  be  a  certain  earnestness  back  of  the  play- 
fulness of  the  philosopher.  Downrightness  and 
eagerness  to  solve  problems  have  spoiled  many  a  play 
and  novel. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  relations  between  Thinker 
and  Artist.  To  follow  the  problem  further  lies  aside 
from  my  purpose,  which  is  rather  to  consider  a  few 
individual  artists  and  thinkers,  to  get  some  under- 
standing of  their  working  beliefs,  and  to  trace  the 
intellectual  and  artistic  motifs  which  are  an  impor- 
tant, even  if  at  times  hidden,  part  of  their  art  and 
their  philosophy. 


n 

RODIN 

Lines  and  colors  are  for  us  only  signs  of 
hidden  realities.  Our  eyes  plunge  be- 
yond the  surfaces  to  the  spirit. — Rodin. 

It  is  perhaps  too  early  for  a  final  estimate  of  Rodin's 
work.  Time  has  done  much  in  the  way  of  giving 
the  necessary  perspective,  but  with  so  startling,  so 
revolutionary  an  artist  it  must  do  much  more.  Cer- 
tain prejudices  have  been  cleared  away;  and  to-day 
at  the  age  of  seventy-four  Rodin  has  taken  his  place 
at  the  head  of  French  sculptors  as  a  man  of  ripe 
achievement.  This  recognition  he  owes  largely  to 
himself.  He  remained  unshaken  by  the  ridicule  of 
the  press,  and  was  utterly  indifferent  to  the  adverse 
comments  of  the  critics.  He  took  his  time;  worked 
in  his  own  way;  refused  to  modify  his  designs;  kept 
J  to  his  ideals  and  his  technique;  and  routed  the 
scoffers  and  faultfinders  by  sheer  force  of  artistic 
purpose.  It  is  easy  to  be  too  severe  with  these 
critics.  After  all  there  is  some  excuse  for  their 
hostility;  they  had  a  right  to  distrust  a  sculptor  who 
offered  as  his  debut  The  Man  with  the  Broken  Nose^ 
and  who,  when  commissioned  to  design  a  statue  of 

10 


/ 


RODIN  11 


Balzac,  submitted  as  his  sketch  jagged,  grotesquely 
sensual  features  and  a  huge  mass  of  body  wrapped  in 
a  formless  dressing  gown.  It  was  but  human  to 
attack  a  man  whose  attitude  of  cheerful  independence 
seemed  insulting  and  whose  work  could  not  be  made 
to  square  with  their  pet  theories.  They  have  had 
their  say,  and  time  has  unsaid  it.  We  credit  ourselves 
with  greater  insight,  but  it  would,  I  think,  be  rash 
of  us  to  deny  that  we  are  too  near  to  judge  completely 
and  surely,  and  that  much  remains  for  Time,  the 
sifter  and  shifter  of  values. 

But  this  much  may  be  said  even  now  of  Rodin's  A 
sculpture,  that  it  shows  a  technique  which  is  forceful 
and  resourceful  as  well  as  radical,  dramatic  quality 
nervous  strength;  and  that  it  is  intense,  imaginative 
and  intellectually  stimulating.  Such  things  are  rare 
in  modern  sculpture,  \which  at  its  best  is  too  often 
simply  smooth,  graceful  or  piquant,  and  at  its  worst 
theatrical  and  Hfeless.  It  gives  the  impression  of 
being  a  thing  without  resource  or  vitality.  Modern 
music  and  poetry  are  vibrant  with  the  spirit  of  the 
times;  why  should  sculpture  alone  of  all  the  arts 
fail  to  give  something  of  the  passionateness  and  rich- 
ness of  modern  life?  Rodin  has  proved  once  for  all 
that  the  fault  lies  not  with  sculpture  itself,  that  it, 
too,  can  be  made  responsive  and  vital;  he  has  broken 
new  ground  and  shown  sculpture  to  be  still  very  much 
alive. 

His  art  is  not  his  only  answer  to  the  critics.    He 


12  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

has  defended  his  ideals  and  his  technique,  has  done 
it  brilliantly  and  incidentally,  as  only  a  Frenchman- 
can;  he  has  jotted  down  his  thoughts  on  art  in.note- 
i^  books;  and  allowed  himself  to  be  interviewed  freely. 
There  is  hardly  a  critical  study  of  Rodin  in  which 
abundant  use  has  not  been,  made  of  this  material. 
Perhaps  the  completest  and  most  suggestive  collec- 
tions published  are  those  of  Gsell  and  Judith  Cladel. 
Some  allowance  must,  of  course  be  made  foi:  par- 
tisanship, but  enough  remains.  All  these  sayings 
of  Rodin's  give  the  same  impression:  of  a  critic 
who  is  unaffected,  earnest,  and  appreciative  of  fine 
points;  of  an  artist  who  takes  his  art  very  seri- 
ously, reflects  on  its  trend  and  its  sources  of 
inspiration,  and  refuses  to  be  classed  as  merely  a 
maker.  They  are  the  credo  of  a  reflective  artist; 
they  are  not  afterthoughts;  and  they  are  anything  .. 
but  academic.  In  them  may  be  found  the  verve,  t> 
the  imaginative  boldness,  and  the  intellectual  quality 
so  characteristic  of  Rodin's  sculpture.  When  there 
is  such  a  parallelism  it  is  worth  while  to  trace 
it  by 'getting  independently  the  marking  qualities 
of  the  man's  work  and  then  passing  on  to  the  sayings, 
which  are  the  self-expression  of  the  Artist  and  the 
Thinker  in  one. 

As  a  worker  in  marble  and  bronze,  Rodin  is  not  a 
believer  in  sipiooth,  highly  polished  surfaces,  and  in 
the  large,  monotonous  planes  of  groups  in  repose. 
Occasionally  he  aims  very  successfully  at  smoothness 


RODIN  13 

and  grace.  The  softness  and  delicacy  of  his  Spring-  %/ 
time  can  hardly  be  matched.  But  the  truer  Rodin 
cuts  into  surfaces  boldly;  roughens  arid  hollows  out. 
The  effect  is  strikingly  varied  an^  individual.  It  may 
be  studied  in  The  Burghers  oj  Calais,  the  busts 'of 
Dalou  and  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  and  the  face  of 
Balzac,  A  comparison  of  the  surface  of  the  bust 
of  Falguiere  with  that  of  The  Man  with  the  Broken 
Nose  shows  a  slow  maturing  of  this  principle  of 
technique,  in  which  Rodin  saw  greater  and  greater 
possibilities.  In  his  groups  he  shows  a  preference 
for  bodies  in  motion  and  for  sharp-angled  positions  . 
such  as  are  given  by  bent,  stooping  or  writhing  bodies. 
Technically  this  method  of  modelhng  and  grouping 
means  a  sharp  contrast  between  bulging  and  hollowed 
ojat  surfaces,  and  a  strong  play  of  light  and  shade; 
there  is  the  illusion  of  depth,  of  the  thrust  of  mass,  of 
variety  in  the  breaking  up  of  linear  expanse.  This 
furrowing  and  tilting  of  planes  is  not  Rodin's  only 
reason  for  the  choice  o(  other  than  reposeful  and  well- 
balanced  groups.  He  aims  to  give  to  his  art  the  free 
naturalness*  of  Hfe.  John  the  Baptist  is  sculptured 
not  standing,  but  walking;  thus  he,  the  great  fore- 
runner, is  caught  in  his  stride.  Nothing  could  be  , 
simpler,  less  of  the  nature  of  posturing  and  arranging, 
than  The  Burghers  of  Calais.  ^  The  critics  protested 
against  such  violations  of  well-established  academic 
principles,  and  asked  him  to  group  the  burghers 
differently:  his  was  such  an  informal  way  of  sending 


14  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS  " 

men  on  the  road  to  death,  with  nothing  in  the  way 
of  pose  or  set  melodramatic  touch.  And  John  the 
Baptist?  One  might  almost  suspect  them  of  a  naive 
fear  lest  he  be  off  and  out  of  the  door  before  they 
knew  it. 

Beauty,  in  the  accepted  sense  of  formal  beauty,  is 
not  the  highest  law  of  Rodin's  art.  There  again  he 
ran  afoul  of  the  critics,  to  whom  his  continued  and 
bold  use  of  the  ugly  seemed  perverse.  He  would  not 
fit  their  pseudo-classical  ideal  of  banishing  from 
sculpture  every  touch  and  influence  of  the  ugly. 
But  even  this  side  of  their  extreme  position,  Rodin's 
extensive  use  of  the  ugly  is  startling.  There  are  in 
formative  art  few  instances  of  greater  daring  in  its 
use  than  La  Vieille  Heaulmiere,  that  distressingly 
frank  picture  of  the  physical  decay  of  old  age  in  all 
its  hideousness.  In  The  Weeper  a  face  not  unattract- 
ive in  its  lines  is  deliberately  caught  at  its  worst, 
in  the  grimace  of  weeping.  What  has  been  con- 
demned as  absurd  in  sculpture — a  mouth  wide  open — 
Rodin  has  attempted:  in  the  bust  The  Tempest 
there  are  the  head  and  shoulders  of  a  female  figure 
springing  from  the  solid  block  with  a  fine  suggestion 
of  frenzied  movement;  a  suggestion  carried  over 
to  the  face  with  its  tense  expression,  its  wild  eyes, 
and  wide-open  mouth. 

A  further  characteristic  of  Rodin's  work  is  its 
dramatic  quality.  This  must  not  be  held  to  imply 
theatricalism,  which  marks  an  art  at  once  showy  and 


RODIN  15 

weak;  and  which  expresses  itself  in  unnatural  poses, 
constrained  gestures,  and  affected  conceits.  On  the 
whole  there  is  no  theatricalism  in  Rodin's  work, 
although  a  few  of  his  groups  are  marred  by  a  not  alto- 
gether happy  raffinement:  The  AngeVs  Kiss  and 
Triton  and  Siren  are  instances.  His  figures  are 
elemental,  passionate,  dramatic,  but  supremely  nat- 
ural in  every  gesture  and  in  the  tension  and  mus- 
cular play  of  their  bodies.  They  seem  to  hold  us  by 
sheer  weight  of  ecstasy  or  passion.  Every  muscle 
shares  in  the  dramatic  voicing  of  movement;  inner 
and  outer,  everything  is  at  one;  one  life  animates 
all  the  parts  of  a  Rodin  group.  >  The  utmost  com- 
pactness is  insisted  on,  and  much  of  the  dramatic 
quality  of  Rodin's  sculpture  is  due  to  this,  but  the 
compactness  is  never  purely  external  or  unnatural, 
as  it  is  in  the  Laocoon  group.  Rodin  often  blocks 
his  figures  or  works  them  out  of  a  solid  background 
of  rock  for  the  sake  of  binding  violent  gestures  or 
figures  to  a  unity.  Often  he  gains  the  same  end  by 
flexing  an  elbow  or  rounding  a  gesture  or  by  economic 
grouping;  no  straggling  arm  is  allowed;  the  group 
is  bent  back  into  itself,  and  yet  there  is  nothing 
suggestive  of  the  strained  or  unnatural;  simply  be- 
cause an  inner  life  is  there,  gathering  up  everything, 
making  everything  one.  The  mood  or  idea  is  worked 
out  in  the  several  figures  of  the  group  and  in 
their  relations;  no  single  figure  dominates  the  group. 
In  looking  at  Springtime,  an  exquisitely  modelled 


x^ 


16  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

piece,  the  eye  does  not  catch  separately  the  free  and 
strong  posture  of  the  one  figure  and  the  passionate 
yieldingness  of  the  other. 

It  is  to  this  inwardness  as  well  as  to  compactness 
and  a  strong  naturalness  that  the  dramatic  quality 
of  Rodin's  art  is  due.  It  gives  beauty  and  expressive- 
ness to  his  bust  Thought  and  his  statue  The  Thinker. 
The  face  of  the  bust  is  not  meant  to  be  beautiful; 
its  lines  are  too  irregular;  and  yet  never  has  sculptor 
suggested  more  forcibly  the  pensive  calm  and  intense 
self-absorption  of  a  soul  lost  in  thought.  In  The 
Thinker  a  contrasted  mood  is  caught.  Rodin  repre- 
sents his  Thinker  seated  on  a  rock,  bent  forward, 
one  arm  clasping  a  knee,  the  other  bent  at  the  elbow 
and  again  at  the  wrist;  the  back  of  the  hand  shoved 
under  and  supporting  a  massive  chin.  The  muscles 
are  tense  and  bulky;  the  neck,  short;  head  and  body, 
those  of  a  heavy-set  athlete.  No  statue  could  be 
more  compact  in  its  lines;  nor  could  compactness 
be  more  expressive  of  mood;  here  is/thought  at  its 
hardest,  puzzled,  bewildered,  groping  obstinately; 
with  the  body,  muscles,  tendons  and  all,  heaved  into 
the  struggle. 

In  Rodin's  Hell  Gate,  which,  still  unjSnished,  is 
to  be  a  chiselled  Dante's  Inferno ,  there  is  a  group  of 
two  souls  in  hellfire.  Their  bodies,  supported  by 
knees  and  arms  and  crossing  at  the  thighs,  form  a 
double  arc — a  position  extreme,  but  tragic  and  simple 
with    the    simplicity   of    great    art.     These    arched 


RODIN  17 

bodies  suggest  the  curling  and  shrivelling  of  leaves 
in  the  fire  and  a  more  merciless  heat  than  could  have 
been  suggested  by  any  writhing  or  twisting. 

One  further  illustration — the  Ugolino,  The  story 
of  Ugolino,  crazed  by  hunger  and  devouring  his  sons, 
has  been  put  by  Dante  in  verse  unmatched  for  sheer 
horror  and  sublimity.  In  sculpture  Carpeaux  has 
given  a  rather  theatrical  group.  Rodin's  is  simple 
and  tragic.  Ugolino  crouches,  on  hands  and  knees, 
with  his  sons  caught  under  him.  Nothing  could  be 
more  wolfish  than  the  position  of  this  hunger-racked 
body;  but  Rodin  passes  from  the  horrible  to  the 
tragic  in  Ugolino's  face.  The  head  is  not  bent  down; 
it  is  in  line  with  shoulders  and  back;  the  eyes  stare 
wildly  and  vacantly,  and  there  is  something  about 
the  cast  of  the  mouth  and  the  smooth  lines  of  the  face 
more  terrible  than  the  utmost  physical  agony.  It 
is  the  wreckage  of  hunger  and  grief — something  of 
beast  and  something  of  a  god  demented. 

A  further  mark  of  Rodin's  art  is  its  combination  of 
reahsm  and  symbolism.  His  busts  run  remarkably 
true,  but  it  is  in  giving  the  muscular  expressiveness 
of  the  body  that  he  excels.  One  need  only  compare 
his  Adam  with  that  of  Michael  Angelo  to  see  what  an 
advantage  the  fearless  sculptor  has  over  the  painter 
in  this  respect.  Very  instructive  also  are  his  nu- 
merous and  accurate  studies  of  the  hand.  So  true 
anatomically  was  one  of  his  earlier  figures  that  he 
was  accused  of  having  taken  a  cast  from  the  living 


18  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

model.  Rejecting  the  one-angle  theory  of  sculptured 
figures,  Rodin  insists  on  their  being  modelled  with 
equal  strength  and  care  on  all  sides;  this  leads  him 
to  a  remarkably  realistic  and  expressive  treatment 
of  shoulders  and  back,  as  in  the  marble  statuette 
The  Bather,  or  still  better  in  the  Eve,  It  would, 
however,  be  a  mistake  to  say  that  Rodin  aims  at 
.^extreme  naturalism  as  a  tour  de  force  or  at  all  costs; 
it  is  after  all,  a  mood,  a  passion,  an  elemental  conflict 
he  wishes  to  catch;  and  he  purposely  exaggerates  the 
size  of  a  hand  or  foot,  overdoes  a  muscle  or  hints  at 
two  successive  moments  in  one  and  the  same  posture, 
in  order  to  heighten  the  significance  or  give  the  sym- 
bolical content  of  his  figures.  In  this  way  he  avoids 
such  dangers  of  decadent  sculpture  as  the  muscular 
theatricalism  of  the  Laocoon  group  and  the  muscular 
overdevelopment  and  immobility  of  the  Farnese 
Hercules;  besides,  he  avoids  the  opposite  defect, 
that  of  the  insipid.  Rodin's  art  is  nothing  if  not 
imaginatively  and  intellectually  stimulating.  It  is 
an /Eve  ashamed,  guilt-stricken,  that  he  gives  us. 
In  Satyr  and  Nymph  there  is  something  of  the  force 
and  breathless  lust  of  nature  at  her  earliest.  In  the 
Burghers  of  Calais  there  is  a  subtle  grading  of  hero- 
ism and  suffering,  worked  out  in  figures  that  com- 
bine an  almost  grotesque  naturalism — think  of  the 
figure  of  the  monk — with  an  astounding  wealth  and 
intensity  of  feeling  and  thought. 


RODIN  19 

So  much  for  some  of  the  significant  features  of 
Rodin's  art.  It  is  in  direct  relation  to  them  that  his 
reflections  on  art  must  be  taken.  Of  the  latter  the 
rich  and  charmingly  simple  conversations  with 
Gsell,  published  under  the  title  VArt  in  191 1,  offer 
good  samples.  There  Rodin  discusses  such  topics 
as  realism  in  art,  symboHsm,  design  and  color, 
movement  in  sculpture,  thought  in  art,  and  modelHng. 
Some  four  or  five  of  these  are  of  unusual  interest. 
They  reveal  the  inner  springs  of  Rodin's  art  and 
genius. 

Discussing  modelling,  Rodin  by  way  of  an  object 
lesson  takes  up  a  small  lamp  and  lets  its  light  glide 
over  a  marble  copy  of  the  Venus  dei  Medici,  and 
asks  Gsell  to  notice  the  many  grooves,  unevennesses, 
minute  juttings  and  depressions.  What  seemed 
smooth  and  simple  turns  out  to  be  complex,  and 
gives  the  impression  of  an  infinitely  rich,  warm, 
and  faithful  art  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  lifelessness 
and  meagreness  of  academic  sculpture.  The  Greek 
ideal  is  one  of  blended  richness;  and  it  is  only  because 
the  Greek  artist  was  a  patient  student  of  nature  and 
a  master  in  the  science  of  modelling,  that  he  could 
give  warmth  and  finality  to  his  work.  Rodin  puts  it 
this  way: 

*'  Do  you  know  how  this  impression  of  lifelike-  , 

ness  the  Venus  has  just  given  us  is  produced?    By  '  j 

the  science  of  modelling.     These  words  may  seem  trite  '^ 
to  you,  but  you  will  soon  see  their  importance.    The 


\: 


20  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

science  of  modelKng  was  shown  me  by  a  certain  Con- 
stant, who  worked  in  the  decorator's  shop  where  I 
began  as  a  sculptor.  One  day  he  saw  me  shaping 
in  clay  the  foUage  of  a  capital.  ^  Rodin/  he  said, 
*  you  handle  yourself  poorly.  All  these  leaves  of 
yours  appear  flat.  That  is  why  they  don't  seem  real. 
Make  some  with  their  points  shaped  toward  you,  so 
as  to  give  any  one  who  looks  at  them  the  impression 
of  depth.' 

"  I  followed  his  advice  and  was  surprised  at  the 
result.  '  Remember  well  what  I  have  told  you,' 
continued  Constant,  *  henceforth  in  your  sculpture 
never  see  forms  spread  out,  flat,  but  always  deep  .  .  . 
Never  consider  a  surface  other  than  the  end  of  a 
solid,  as  a  point  more  or  less  large  aimed  at  you. 
That  is  how  you  will  acquire  the  science  of  model- 
Ung.' 

"  This  principle  proved  itself  wonderfully  fruitful 
to  me.  I  made  use  of  it  in  shaping  my  figures.  In- 
stead of  regarding  the  different  parts  of  the  body  as 
so  many  planes  I  represented  them  as  so  many  juttings 
of  masses  beyond.  I  forced  myself  to  let  feel  in- every 
bulging  of  the  torso  or  the  limbs  the  cropping  out  of 
a  muscle  or  bone  that  continued  as  depth  beneath 
the  skin.  That  is  why  the  truth  of  my  figures  instead 
of  being  superficial  seems  to  expand  from  within 
outward  like  life  itself. 

''  Then  I  discovered  that  the  ancients  used  exactly 
the  same  science  of  modelling.  And  it  is  certainly 
to  this  principle  of  technique  that  their  works  owe 
'at  once  their  strength  and  their  quivering  suppleness." 


Rodin  then  suggests  that  light  and  shade  effects  are 
possible  in  sculpture  as  well  as  in  painting.  Ay^ 

/ 


RODIN  21 

"  In  your  opinion,  Gsell,  is  color  a  quality  of  paint- 
ing or  of  sculpture?  " 

'^Of  painting,  naturally.'' 

**  Well,  look  at  this  statue.''  Sa3dng  this,  he  held 
the  lamp  so  that  its  light  fell  on  the  torso  from  above. 
*^  Do  you  see  these  strong  lights  on  the  breasts,  these 
strong  shadows  in  the  folds  of  the  flesh,  and  then 
the  whitenesses,  the  vaporous  and  trembling  half- 
lights  on  the  most  delicate  parts  of  this  divine  body; 
these  parts  so  delicately  drawn  that  they  seem  to 
dissolve  into  thin  air?  What  do  you  say  to  them? 
Isn't  it  all  a  wonderful  symphony  in  black  and  white?" 

"  I  had  to  admit  it." 

"  Paradox  as  it  may  seem,  the  great  sculptors 
have  been  great  colorists,  and  the  best  painters  have 
been  excellent  engravers. 

*'  They  play  so  skilfully  all  the  resources  of  relief, 
they  fuse  so  well- the  boldness  of  light  and  the  modesty 
of  shadow  that  their  sculptures  have  all  the  relish 
of  the  richest  etching.  Color  then — and  that  is 
what  I  wish  to  come  to — is  like  the  flower  and  bloom  , 
of  good  modelling.  These  qualities  go  together,  and  / 
it  is  they  that  give  to  the  masterpieces  of  sculptura 
the  radiant  aspect  of  living  flesh." 

/  Rodin  also  considers  the  problem  of  movement  in 
sculpture.^  He  himself  makes  use  of  movement  in 
order  to  bring  out  sharply  the  muscular  expressive- 
ness of  the  body;  here  his  suggestive  theory  of 
movement  in  sculpture  may  be  said  to  begin.  It  is 
the  sculptor's  aim  to  express  feelings  and  passions; 
and  this  he  must  do  largely  through  the  muscles; 
they  in  turn  can  be  rendered  effectively  only  on 


22  ARTISTS  AND   THINKERS 

condition  that  the  figure  whose  mood  is  to  be  given  is 
lifelike.  This  lifelikeness  depends  on  two  things: 
good  modelling  and  movement;  and  they  are  the 
*'  blood  ''  and  "  breath  "  of  sculpture.  Defining 
movement  as  "  the  changing  of  one  posture  into  an- 
other/' Rodin  develops  the  principle  of  progressive 
movement.  The  sculptor,  he  argues,  combines  in 
one  moment  of  presentation  two  successive  positions, 
and  thus  makes  the  spectator  take  part  in  the  de- 
velopment of  a  movement,  follow  it  with  the  eye, 
and  get  the  stimulus  of  active  change.)  John  the 
Baptist  is  shown  walking,  and  yet  flatfooted  as  one 
standing.  In  the  Age  of  Bronze,  one  of  Rodin's 
earlier  works,  the  awakening  of  primitive  man  is 
symbolized.  There  the  lower  part  of  the  body  still 
has  something  of  the  softness  and  deep  unconscious- 
ness of  sleep,  but  as  the  eye  follows  the  body  upward, 
the  first  dawn  of  consciousness  shows  itself  in  head, 
shoulder,  and  arm.  Rodin  further  suggests  that  in 
complex  groups  a  skilful  grading  of  moments  or  a 
varying  of  the  tempo  will  allow  the  sculptor  by  his 
own  technique  to  render  movement  quite  as  effect- 
ively as  the  poet.  As  examples  he  cites  Rude's 
La  Marseillaise  and  his  own  Burghers  of  Calais^ 

/Rodin's  thoughts  on  modelling,  light  and  shade, 
ana  movement  are  thoughts  on  technique  and  are 
offered  as  new  observations  on  very  old  principles 
of  all  masterly  sculpture.  Rodin  himself  again  and 
again  turns  to  Greek  art  and  professes  to  find  all  his 


RODIN  23 

principles  there;  he  refers  to  the  modelling  of  the 
Venus  dei  Medici  and  the  rush  and  sweep  of  the 
Victory  of  Samothrace,  Still  there  is  hardly  anything 
at  all  like  his  principle  of  progressive  movement  in 
Greek  sculpture;  and  Greek  modelling  seems  much 
less  given  to  uneven,  jagged  or  furrowed  surfaces. 
The  truth  must  lie  deeper;  in  certain  thoroughly 
modern  artistic  demands  and  ideals  expressed  in 
Rodin's  art  and  shadowed  forth  imperfectly  in  his 
reflection.  No  one  would  deny  extreme  individuality 
to  his  work.  And  no  one  with  the  vagaries  of  our 
younger  painters  and  poets  in  mind  would  deny  that 
the  demand  for  individuality  is  very  strong  in  our  lat- 
ter-day art.  It  dominates  conception  and  technique. 
In  sculpture  individuality  of  technique  is  so  difl&cult 
a  matter  that  artists  of  the  stature  of  Canova  and 
Thorvaldsen  failed  to  achieve  it.  Rodin  seeks  to 
gain  it  by  the  breaking  up  of  surfaces,  by  projections 
and  indentations,  by  accentuating  and  deepening; 
and,  in  spite  of  what  he  says,  he  is  not  a  disciple  of 
the  Greeks  in  this.  Letting  the  light  of  a  lamp 
glide  over  the  surface  of  the  Venus  dei  Medici  is 
hardly  a  fair  test,  for  the  headlights  of  an  automobile 
will  make  the  smoothest  asphalt  road  appear  as  badly 
dented  as  a  battered  piece  of  tin.  Rather  is  it  the 
modern  demand  for  a  perfectly  individualized  surface 
and  a  modern  restive  technique  that  make  themselves 
felt.  /Again,  such  a  principle  as  that  of  progressive 
movement  in  sculpture  is  simply  one  instance  more 


24  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

of  the  psychological  factor  in  modern  art.  The 
essentially  ^instable,  fluid,  transforming  character 
of  processes  of  attention  and  perception  is  recognized 
here  as  well  as  in  impressionistic  painting  and  in  the 
incessant  transmutations  of  Wagnerian  music. 

Rodin's  emphasis  on  movement  touches  still  an- 
other demand;  a  demand  that  goes  beyond  questions 
of  technique  to  the  fundamental  question:  "  What  isi 
sculpture  to  portray?  ''    Life  as  movement,   Rodin) 
answers.     Of  the  artist  he  says  that  for  him  ^^  life\ 
is  an  infinite  enjoyment,  a  constant  ecstasy,  a  dis-1 
tracted  intoxication.''    This  breaks  at  once  with  theJ 
traditional  view   of   sculpture   as   a   self-contained, 
placid  art,  creator  of  gleaming  marbles  at  rest,  and 
asks  for  a  dynamic  and  restless  sculpture  to  parallel 
life  in  its  restlessness  and  energy.     In  this  sense 
Rodin's    art    is    thoroughly    modern.     Everywhere, 
from  the  most  surprising  quarters,  and  in  various 
forms,  comes  the  demand  for  an  interpretation  of 
I  life  as  movement.     Philosophy  and  art  alike  show 
this  drift  of  the  modern  consciousness.     It  is  seen 
in  Bergson's  elan  vital]    in  the  Futurist's   stress  on 
youth    and    the    Futurist   ideal    of    an    art   out  of 
breath.     It   appears,    at   once   more   vigorous   and 
saner,  in  the  artistic  ideals  of  Rodin. 

This  demand  for  an  art  which  is  to  reflect  movement 
and  cosmic  struggle  carries  us  into  the  very  heart  of 
Rodin's  artistic  beliefs.  It  implies  the  rejection  of 
beauty,  in  the  sense  of  the  regular,  the  harmonious. 


KODIN  25 

the  pleasing,  as  the  aim  of  sculpture  and  the  accept- 
ance of  expressiveness,  character,  and  symbolical 
content  as  the  ideal.  It  extends  the  range  and  shifts 
the  emphasis.  Rodin  often  discusses  the  place  of 
ugliness,  of  expression,  and  thought  in  sculpture.  A 
passage  like  the  following  begins  with  the  problem 
of  ugliness — La  Vieille  Heaulmiere  being  under  dis- 
cussion— but  widens  out  into  all  the  others: 

"  ^  Master,''  I  said  to  my  host, '  no  one  admires  more 
than  I  do  this  astounding  figure,  but  I  hope  you  will 
not  be  angry  if  I  tell  you  what  ejffect  it  has  on  the  visitors, 
especially  the  women  visitors,  at  the  Musee  du  Luxem- 
bourg .  .  . ' 

^' '  You  will  oblige  me  by  telling  me.' 

"  ^  Well,  the  public  in  general  turns  away,  exclaim- 
ing: ^^  How  ugly  that  isP^  and  I  have  often  seen  women 
cover  their  eyes  in  order  to  spare  themselves  that  sight,'' 

^'  Rodin  began  to  laugh  heartily. 

"  '  My  work  must  be  eloquent  to  call  forth  such 
lively  impressions.  Beyond  doubt  such  persons  fear 
basic  truths  when  they  are  too  harsh. 

**  ^  But  the  only  thing  that  matters  is  the  opinion 
of  men  of  taste.  I  have  been  delighted  to  gather 
their  votes  on  my  Vieille  Heaulmiere.  I  am  like  the 
Roman  singer  who  answered  the  hisses  of  the  crowd 
by  saying,  "  I  sing  for  the  nobles,''  which  means,  the 
connoisseurs. 

"  ^  The  crowd  likes  to  believe  that  what  it  judges 
to  be  ugly  in  actual  Hfe  is  not  fit  matter  for  art.  It 
would  like  to  forbid  our  picturing  what  it  finds  dis- 
pleasing or  offensive  in  nature. 

*'  *  That  is  a  serious  error  on  its  part.    What  is 


26  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

commonly  called  ugliness  in  nature  can  in  art  become 
veryTteautiful.  In  the  class  of  actual  objects  we 
call  ugly  what  is  misshapen,  what  is  unhealthy,  what 
suggests  the  idea  of  disease,  weakness,  suffering, 
what  violates  regularity — that  sign  and  condition  of 
health  and  strength:  a  cripple  is  ugly,  a  sabre  is 
ugly,  misery  in  rags  is  ugly.  Ugly  again  are  the  soul 
and  the  actions  of  an  immoral  man,  of  a  vicious  and 
criminal  man,  of  an  abnormal  man  dangerous  to 
society;  ugly  is  the  soul  of  the  parricide,  the  traitor, 
the  ambitious  man  without  scruples. 

"  *  It  is  fit  that  beings  and  objects  from  which  we 
can  expect  nothing  but  ill  be  marked  by  an  odious 
epithet. 

*'  *  When,  however,  a  great  artist  or  writer  takes 
hold  of  one  of  these  uglinesses  he  at  once  trans- 
figures it,  with  a  stroke  of  his  magic  wand  he 
makes  of  it  a  thing  of  beauty.  It  is  alchemy;  it  is 
witchery! 

*^  *  When  Velasquez  paints  Sebastian,  the  court 
fool  of  Philip  IV,  he  gives  him  so  moving  a  look  that 
we  read  in  it  at  once  the  sorrowful  secret  of  this 
cripple,  who  in  order  to  earn  a  living  is  forced  to  give 
up  his  dignity  as  a  human  being,  to  become  a  play- 
thing, a  living  cap  and  bells.  And  the  more  poignant 
is  the  martyrdom  of  this  consciousness  lodged  in  a 
monstrous  body,  the  more  beautiful  is  the  work  of  the 
artist. 

'^  ^  When  Francois  Millet  pictures  a  poor  peasant 
who  stops  for  a  breathing  spell;  leaning  on  his  hoe — 
a  sufferer  broken  by  weariness,  cooked  by  the  sun, 
as  brutish  as  a  beast  of  burden  raked  with  blows — 
all  that  is  needed  is  to  discover  in  the  expression  of 
this  damned  one  resignation  to  torture  decreed  by 


RODIN  27 

fate,  and  this  creature  of  a  nightmare  becomes  a 
magnificent  symbol  of  humanity  at  large. 

**  '  When  Baudelaire  describes  a  foul  carcass, 
shmy  and  eaten  by  worms,  and  when  he  pictures 
under  this  frightful  image  his  adored  mistress,  noth- 
ing could  equal  in  splendor  this  horrible  opposition 
between  beauty  one  would  wish  eternal  and  the 
fearful  disintegration  that  awaits  it. 

And  yet  you  will  be  like  this  filth,  this  horrible  infection, 
Star  of  my  eyes.  Sun  of  my  nature!  O  my  angel  and  my 
passion! 

Yes,  such  you  will  be,  O  queen  of  graces,  after  the  last 
sacraments,  when  you  shall  go  under  the  sod  lush  with 
blossoms,  to  rot  among  the  bones, 

Then,  O  my  Beauty,  tell  the  vermin  that  devour  you  with 
kisses  that  I  have  guarded  the  form  and  the  divine  essence 
of  my  decomposed  loves. 

'^ '  It  is  the  same  when  Shakespeare  paints  lago  or  \ 
Richard  III,  when  Racine  paints  Nero  £Cnd  Narcissus:  \ 
moral  ugHness  interpreted  by  minds  so  clear  and   y 
penetrating  becomes  a  marvellous  theme  of  beauty.    / 

^' '  In  short,  /the  beautiful  JQ  art  is  simply  what   j 
has  character.  '  -^  --^ 

'^  ^  Character  is  the  intense  truth  of  any  sight  or 
scene  of  nature  whether  beautiful  or  ugly;  it  might 
even  be  called  a  double  truth,  for  it  is  the  truth  within 
translated  by  that  of  without;  it  is  the  soul,  feeling, 
idea,  as  they  are  expressed  by  the  lines  of  a  face,  the 
gestures  and  acts  of  a  human  being,  the  tones  of  the 
sky  or  the  Kne  of  an  horizon. 

"  '  For  the  great  artist  everything  in  nature  offers 


28  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

character,  for  the  Incorruptible  candor  of  his  observa- 
tion pushes  to  the  hidden  sense  of  everything.  And 
what  is  thought  of  as  ugly  in  nature  often  presents 
more  character  than  what  is  styled  beautiful,  for  in 
the  contractions  of  a  sickly  face,  in  the  smirk  of  a 
vicious  mask,  in  every  deformity  and  every  blight, 
the  inner  truth  bursts  forth  mdje  easily  than  in 
regular  and  sound  features. 

*'  *  And  since  it  is  simply  the  strength  of  character 
that  makes  the  beautiful  in  art,  it  follows  that  often 
a  thing  is  the  more  beautiful  in  art  the  uglier  it  is  in 
nature.  That  alone  is  ugly  in  art  which  lacks  char- 
acter, that  is  to  say, /has  no  outer  or  inner  truth. 
Ugly  in  art  is  /what  is  false  or  artificial,  what  seeks 
to  be  pretty  or  beautiful  instead  of  being  expressive; 
what  is  clownish  or  affected,  what  smiles  without 
motive,  what  is  handled  without  reason,  what  bends 
or  straightens  itself  without  cause:  everything  that 
is  without  soul  and  without  truth,  everything  that  is 
a  parading  of  beauty  or  grace,  everything  that  lies. 

"  '  When/4n  artist  for  the  purpose  of  embellishing 
nature  adds'  green  to  the  springtime,  rose  to  the 
dawn,  red  to  young  lips,  he  creates  ugliness,  because 
he  lies. 

"  '  When  he  softens  the  grimace  of  pain,  the  flabbi- 
ness  of  old  age,  the  hideousness  of  the  perverse,  when 
he  arranges  Nature,  when  he  veils  her,  disguises  her, 
when  he  softens  her  in  order  to  please  an  ignorant 
public,  he  creates  ugliness  because  he  is  afraid  of  the 
truth. 

"  ^For  an  artist  worthy  of  the  name  everything  in 
nature  is  beautiful,  because  his  eyes,  accepting  boldly 
every  outer  truth,  read  therein  without  pain  and  as 
in  an  open  book  every  inner  truth. 


RODIN  29 

'' '  He  need  only  look  at  a  human  countenance  in 
order  to  decipher  a  soul;  not  a  single  trait  deceives 
him;  hypocrisy  is  to  him  as  transparent  as  sincerity; 
/the  angle  of  a  forehead,  the  least  knitting  of  the  eye- 
brows, a  passing  glance,  reveal  to  him  the  secrets  of  a 
heart. 

"  *  He  examines  the  spirit  folded  up  in  an  animal. 
He  sees  in  the  look  and  the  movements  of  an  animal 
its  whole  moral  life — that  rough  sketch  of  feelings 
and  thoughts,  a  heavy  intelligence  and  the  rudiments 
of  tenderness.  In  the  same  way  he  is  the  confidant 
of  inanimate  nature! " 

This  passage  should  be  supplemented  by  one  of 
the  several  in  which  Rodin  discusses  the  sense  of 
mystery  and  the  nature  of  symbolism.  In  one  of  the 
later  conversations  with  Gsell  he  defines  religion  as 
the  sense  of  mystery,  as  ^^  the  push  of_our  jconscious- 
ness  toward  the  infinite,  J:heeternaL.tQward  a_knQwl=__ 
eage'"and~a  love  jadthout-liniits>^?  This  sense  of 
mystery  every  great  artist  has.    He  then  continues: 

"  If  religion  did  not  exist  I  should  have  to  invent 
it.    True  artists  are  in  short  the  most  religious  of  men. 

"  It  isn:ommonly  believed  that  we  artists  live 
only  by  our  senses,  and  that  the  world  of  appearances 
satisfies  us.  We  are  thought  to  be  children  who  are 
drunk  with  brilliant  colors  and  who  amuse  themselves 
with  shapes  as  with  dolls.  We  are  not  well  under- 
stood. Lines  and  tints  are  for  us  only  signs  of  hidden 
realities.  Our  eyes  plunge  beyond  the  surfaces  to 
the  spirit.  When  we  present  contours  we  enrich 
them  with  a  spiritual  content  which  they  are  to 
envelop. 


/^ 


30  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

"  The  artist  worthy  of  the  name  must  express  the 
\  whole  truth  of  nature,  not  only  outer  truth,  but  inner 
truth  as  well. 

"  When  a  good  artist  models  a  human  body  he 

does  not  merely  give  muscles;  he  gives  the  life  that 

'  works  in  them  or,  better  still,  the  power  that  shaped 

them  and  gave  them  grace  or  vigor  or  amorous 

charm  or  untamed  fury. 

"  Michael  Angelo  makes   the   creative  force  roar 
^  in  the  living  flesh;  Lusa  della  Robbia  makes  it  smile 
divinely  !j" 

Gsell  in  the  course  of  the  conversation  suggests 
that  Rodin's  own  statues  show  very  clearly  this  tor- 
ment of  the  invisible  and  inexplicable.  He  sees  in 
many  of  them  the  symbolism  of  a  soul  with  infinite 
yearnings  chained  to  the  flesh.  He  takes  as  examples 
the  statue  of  Balzac,  The  Thinker,  The  Kiss,  The 
Burghers  of  Calais.  All  of  them  are  tensional,  he 
holds,  in  this  sense.  Rodin,  asked  to  confirm  this 
interpretation,  strokes  his  beard  pensively  and  re- 
marks: "  I  shall  not  say  No."  That  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  symbolism  in  his  sculpture  he  admits  in  many 
passages.    The  talk  ends  characteristically. 

"A  moment  later  he  asked  me:  *  Are  you  now 
convinced  that  art  is  a  kind  of  religion?' 

**  ^  Beyond- doubt,'  I  replied. 

"  Then  he  added  mahciously :  '  One  must,  however, 
recall  that  the  first  commandment  of  this  reHgion  for 
those  that  wish  to  practise  it  is  to  know  how  to  model 
an  arm,  a  torso  or  a  thigh.'  " 


RODIN  31 

It  is  clear  from  passages  like  these  that  Rodin 
makes jise  of  the  jigly  for  the  sake  of  its  expressive- 
ness. His  is  not  a  cult  of  the  ugly,  the  morbid,  the 
repulsive  as  such;  still  he  is  on  occasion  extreme 
in  his  use  of  the  ugly  and  repulsive.  He  insists, 
however,  that  what  is  ugly  is  sharply  individualized 
and  stimidating_iiL_the  sense  of  giving  the  sting, 
the  movement,  and  the  expressive  range  of  life.  It 
is  for  the  sake  of  such  symbolism  that  smooth  lines 
must  be  broken;  harmonies  shattered;  and  ugliness 
shown  at  once  in  its  nakedness  and  its  imaginative 
appeal.  Imagination  and  thought  redeem  the  ugly 
in  art,  but  only  when  they  spontaneously  grow  out 
of  the  subject  chosen.  If  anything  can  redeem 
La  Vieille  Heaulmiere  it  is  the  thought,  at  once 
depressing  and  imaginatively  stimulating,  of  the 
contrast  between  youth  and  physical  decay,  and  of 
the  silently  working  forces  that  change  the  one  to 
the  other.  But  the  reference  to  Villon's  poem,  while 
it  adds  to  the  poignancy  of  the  statue,  seems  to  vio- 
late Rodin's  principle  of  inherent  symbolism.  While 
his  interpretation  of  Millet  and  Baudelaire  is  sound 
in  its  emphasis  on  an  ideal  significance,  his  reading 
of  Velasquez'  painting  of  the  court  fool  is  fanciful, 
to  say  the  least;  an  extraneous  forcing  of  meaning. 
In  spite  of  occasional  lapses  Rodin  is  too  much  of  an 
artist  to  burden  art  with  the  fantastic  and  narrow 
symbolism  that  is  to  be  found  in  Ruskin  and  Tolstoy. 
He  is  saved  not  only  by  his  emphasis  on  form,  color. 


32  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

and  muscular  expressiveness,  but  by  his  interpretation 
^   of  life  as  movement  and  struggle,  and  by  the  free 
play  of  his  imagination.    In  discussing  his  statue 
La  Centaur  esse,  Rodin  remarks: 

^  .  .       .  \ 

X^"  In  subjects  of   this  kind   the   thought  reveals 

(  itself,  I  believe,  without  much  trouble.     They  awaken 
)  without  any  strange  help  the  imagination  of  the 
'  onlooker.    And  yet,   far  from  encircling  it  within 
\  narrow  limits,  they  incite  to  a  vagabondage  of  fancy. 
I  And  this,  to  me,  is  the  meaiiing^  art  JThe^forms, 
/  it^_Qreates  are  to^veto^^Teeimg^  an  opportunity  to 
I    developTnaefinitely." 
1 
■       Of  this  vagabondage  of  fancy  there  is  much  in 

Rodin's  work,  and  to  its  score  must  be  put  many  of 
his  grotesque  and  startling  experiments  in  forms. 
He  is  not  a  novelty  seeker;  but  he  likes  bold  con- 
ceptions and  a  certain  amount  of  loose  play.  It  is 
the  Gothic  in  him — superabundant  energy  and  play- 
fulness keeping  symbolism  sane  and  the  imagination 
at  a  stretch.  Not  that  this  destroys  his  theory  that 
sculpture  is  to  give  character,  that  it  is  to  be  signi^- 
cant  at  all  hazards — it  merely  gives  it  wider  scope  by 
interpreting  life  as  energy,  as  movement  with  much 
variety,  more  than  a  hint  at  purposiveness,  and  a 
dash  of  caprice  and  playfulness. 

Rodin  does  not  stand  alone  in  emphasizing  what 
is  ugly  and  in  revealing  the  thrust  of  an  ideal  mean- 
ing— call  it  thought  or  feeling  or  the  drive  of  life — 
in  sensuous  forms.    It  is  worth  while  to  compare 


RODIN  33 

him  in  this  respect  with  one  of  the  masters  of  etching 
— Felicien  Rops.  Both  men  are  bold  and  forceful 
in  technique — the  one  truthful  and  resourceful  in 
modelling,  the  other  sure  and  finished  in  line.  Both 
are  masters  in  the  portrayal  of  the  sensuous  charm  of 
woman's  beauty,  and  with  both  this  beauty  is  of  a 
type  at  once  robust  and  subtle.  Eve  and  The  Bather 
are  matched  by  Rops's  Flemish  women  with  their 
full-bodied  beauty  and  strong  grace.  Neither  artist 
is  simply  graceful  or  simply  elegant;  both  in  aiming 
at  ideal  significance  admit  the  ugly  to  the  fullest 
extent.  Quite  as  extreme  as  La  Vieille  Heaulmiere 
is  Rops's  Mors  Syphilitica.  The  Absinthe  Drinker  is 
mercilessly  and  repellently  true  at  the  utter  sacrifice 
of  all  formal  beauty.  Skeleton  and  cloven  foot — 
two  devices  considered  obsolete — Rops  uses  again 
and  again,  sometimes  with  a  view  to  the  sinister  and 
the  tragic,  often  with  a  view  to  the  grotesque.  Of 
the  former,  Dancing  Death  and  Death  at  the  Masked 
Ball  are  good  samples;  of  the  latter,  Satan  Sowing 
Weeds  is  the  best.  The  background  of  this  sketch  is  a 
study  in  black — torn  bands  of  cloud  and  a  struggling 
moon;  in  the  lower  foreground  are  the  shadows  of 
a  great  city.  Flung  across  this  scene  and  in  the  act 
of  taking  one  huge  stride  is  Satan,  a  skeleton,  focussed 
from  below,  with  grotesquely  lengthened  shank- 
bones,  sabots  on  his  feet,  and  a  sack-like  cloth  flung 
loosely  across  middle  and  shoulder,  and  with  a  head 
that  is  haunting  by  its  sheer  unHkeness  to  anything 


34  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

but  a  bat  in  the  winglike  extensions  and  the  black- 
ringed  brightness  of  the  eyes.  Satan  is  sowing 
weeds — tiny  cupids  that  are  sent  tumbhng  toward 
the  dark  shadows  of  the  city.  Almost  as  grotesque 
and  more  repulsive  in  its  ugliness  is  Happiness  in 
Crime, 

f  If  Rops  rivals  Rodin  in  the  use  of  the  ugly,  he  out- 
rivals him  in  the  symbolism  of  his  art.  The  dominant 
note  of  this  symbolism  is  one  of  unrelieved  pessimism. 
The  Mirror  of  Coquetry  and  Shamelessness  are  variants 
of  the  same  theme:  the  reflection  of  a  simian  shape  is 
thrown  across  a  mirror  as  a  sardonic  comment  on  the 
vanity  and  pride  of  man.  Skull  and  cloven  foot  are 
used  as  symbols  of  the  transitory,  useless,  and  wicked 
thing  called  life.  Theft  and  Prostitution  Rule  the 
World  is  the  title  of  one  of  Rops's  etchings;  in  another, 
The  Love-Market,  an  old  hag  is  motioning  purchasers 
to  the  sale  of  a  young  girl.  Rops's  absolute  mastery 
of  sensuous  form  marks  his  symbohsm  all  the  more 
strongly.  Much  of  his  work  is  dominated  by  the 
figure  of  woman.  Sure  of  her  power,  triumphant  with 
the  triumph  of  an  unconscious  and  cruel  animalism, 
ahe  brings  unrest,  misery,  and  idle  amusement — 
the  Devil's  own  gifts;  but  change  and  death  threaten 
this  splendor  of  the  flesh. 

It  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  regard  all  of  Rops's 
work  from  this  point  of  view,  for  much  of  it  is  simply 
diablerie;  some  of  his  best  drawings,  the  Rem- 
brandtesque  faces  of  old  women,  are  nothing  more 


RODIN  35 

than  studies  in  light  and  shade  and  in  line.  But  of 
what  remains  the  symbolism  is  one  of  moral  ideas. 
Often  this  moral  significance  is  so  pointed  and 
oppressive  that  it  runs  danger  of  lessening  the  artistic 
excellence,  but  in  many  of  the  etchings  it  is  at  once 
general  and  compelling,  much  to  the  gain  of  art. 
Of  such  gain  Human  Wreckage  and  The  Absinthe 
Drinker  are  splendid  examples,  but  even  here  there  is 
a  wide  difference  between  the  symbolism  of  Rops  and 
that  of  Rodin.  Rops's  art  is  fin  de  siecle  in  its 
pessimism,  its  irony,  and  in  a  certain  raffinement  of 
the  sensuous.  With  biting  satire  and  in  a  spirit 
of  bitter  mockery  it  gives  a  world  broken  on  the 
wheel  of  its  own  folly  and  vice.  A  merciless  light 
beats  down  on  whatever  is  diseased,  perverse,  morally 
rotten  in  modern  life.  The  symbolism  is  one  of 
moral  values. 

Not  so  with  Rodin.  There  is  neither  mockery  nor 
satire  in  his  work,  but  there  is  a  very  primitive_and 
very  direct  joy  of  life,  and  a  very  sharp  sense  of  the  ^ 
dramatic  and  dynamic;  at  the  heart  of  his  symbolism 
aje^uchjimpl£jdp.a,s  as:  movement^- unrest,  passion, 
lust,  work^layj  man's  early  struggle  with  nature, 
thought,  melancholy,  bitterness.  He  feels  all  these 
and  their  elemental  conflicts  to  the  full,  but  his  rugged 
optmism  finds  them  bracing.  He  avoids  the  bour- 
geois symbolism  of  a  Hogarth  with  its  moral  picture 
book  series,  and  the  great  but  too  strongly  moral 
symbolism  of  a  Rops.    Artistically  the  symbolism  of 


36  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Mors  Syphilitica  is  inferior  to  that  of  La  Vieille 
Heaulmiere;  the  idea  of  the  ravages  of  a  particular 
disease  is  inferior  in  range  and  power  to  the  idea  of 
the  silent,  inevitable  passing  from  youth  to  old  age. 
In  contrast  to  a  symbolism  that  crystallizes,  Rodin's 
*^  is  ^uid.  It  expresses  his  view  that  life  is  movement 
and  struggle;  something  as  unrestful  and  intensely 
dramatic  in  its  quiet  changes  as  in  its  explosive 
moments.  It  is  a  symbolism  of  life-forces  in  their 
j  flow  and  at  full  pressure. 

This  fluid,  natural  symbolism  Rodin  joins  to  a 
strong    and    accurate    technique.    He    knows    the 

V  anatomy  and  geometry  of  his  art,  and  gets  full  plastic 
value  out  of  his  marble.  In  his  best  work  the  form 
is  made  to  respond  so  thoroughly  and  readily  to  a 
symboHc  idea  which  in  turn  seems  to  grow  out  of  it 
that  the  impression  is  one  of  an  art  of  stronger  dra- 
matic quality  and  of  greater  imaginative  and  intellec- 
tual range  and  wealth  than  was  thought  possible  in 
sculpture.  Rodin  as  a  thinker  on  art  has  the  insight 
and  the  courage  to  see  the  value  of  what  made  him 
great   as   an   artist.    He   demands    an   unflinching 

J  observation,   accuracy,   individuality,   skill,   forceful  1 
workmanship — all  at  the  service  of  an  artistic  pur- 
pose that  catches  the  very  breath  and  pulse-beat  of 
Ufa.  \  J 


Ill 

MAETERLINCK 

Nothing  in  the  whole  world  is  so  athirst 
for  beauty  as  the  soul,  nor  is  there  anything 
to  which  beauty  clings  so  readily. 

— Maeterlinck. 

Maeterlinck's  aesthetic  essays  might  be  counted 
on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  Two — The  Inner  Beauty 
and  The  Tragical  in  Daily  Life — are  to  be  found  in  / 
The  Treasure  of  the  Humble;  one — The  Modern 
Drama — in  The  Double  Garden;  and  one — King  Lear 
— in  The  Measure  of  the  Hours.  "  To  these  must 
be  added  the  fine  preface  to  the  collected  plays. 
Then  there  are,  of  course,  many  incidental  remarks  J 
on  art  and  beauty> 

His  interest  everywhere  seems  to  lie  in  two 
problems:  he  attempts  a  new  interpretation  of  the 
tragic,  and  he  sees  in  beauty  the  self-expression  of 
a  strong  and  responsive  soul,  y  He  ignores  the  social 
and  cultural  relations  of  art,  and  affords  in  this 
respect  a  sharp  contrast  to  men  like  Hegel,  Wag- 
ner, Nietzsche,  Ruskin,  and  Tolstoy;  and  it  is 
owing  to  this,  I  think,  that  his  art  and  philosophy 

37 


38  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

alike  lack  the  gritty  admixture  which  is  found  in 
much  of  their  work.  The  artistic  works  in  few 
men  with  such  purity.  There  is  no  problem  or 
question  of  the  day,  however  matter  of  fact  or 
grim  and  urgent— war,  suffrage,  justice,  gambling, 
automobiling — which  he  fails  to  dissolve  into  a  play 
of  colors  or  a  fantastic  dance  of  possibihties,  drawing 
near  and  receding  in  the  dusk.  His  essays  on 
gambling  and  the  duel,  The  Temple  of  Chance  and 
In  Praise  of  the  Sword,  are  good  samples.  One 
gets  wonderfully  vivid  images,  of  yellow  counters 
and  blue  notes  and  clinking  gold,  of  the  tiny  ivory  ball 
spinning  and  hopping  ^' like  an  angry  insect";  and 
of  the  flash  and  glint  of  the  rapier.  But  one  gets 
more  than  that:  an  ever-changing  outlook  and  play 
of  suggestions.  The  sword  becomes  a  symbol  of 
man's  intelHgence,  of  his  high  sense  of  honor,  and  of 
his  emergence  from  an  early  state  of  brute  force  and 
of  brutal  ways  of  settling  scores;  it  is  likened  to  "  a 
fairy  bridge  swung  over  the  abyss  of  darkness." 
Such  intellectual  and  imaginative  festooning  is 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  MaeterHnck;  it  marks 
both  the  good  and  the  bad  in  his  art  and  philosophy. 
At  its  worst  it  suggests  the  spun-sugar  creations  of  a 
confectioner's  shop;  at  its  best  it  gives  a  wealth 
of  overtones,  a  veiled  aliveness,  and  a  constantly 
shifting  enterprise  in  a  world  of  shadowy  limits. 

The  best  starting-point  for  any  study  of  Maeter- 
linck's personality  as  an  artist  and  a  thinker  is  a 


MAETERLINCK  39 

passage  in  the  preface  to  his  collected  plays.  It  was 
written  in  1908.  In  it  he  analyzes  the  beauty  of  a 
work  of  art  as  follows:  "  First  the  beauty  of  language, 
then  the  impassioned  view  and  portrayal  of  what  exists 
about  us  and  in  us,  that  is,  nature  and  our  sentiments^ 
and  lastly,  enveloping  the  whole  work  and  forming  its 
atmosphere,  the  idea  formed  by  the  poet  of  the  unknown 
in  which  the  beings  and  things  he  calls  forth  are  drifting^ 
and  of  the  mystery  which  rules  and  judges  them  and  pre- 
sides over  their  destiny J^ 

Of  surface  beauty,  made  up  of  the  first  and  the 
second,  there  is  much  in  Maeterlinck.  He  is  unob- 
trusive, direct,  and  delicate  in  his  appreciation  of 
beautiful  things.  There  is  something  Flemish  in 
his  delight  in  precious  stones  and  in  rich,  old  stuffs; 
something  of  French  mediaevalism  at  its  best  in  his 
backgrounds  with  their  castles  and  moats,  their 
parks  with  old  trees  and  sleepy  pools,  their  forests 
and  grottoes  and  cliffs. 

He  is  a  decorative  artist  of  the  first  rank,  and  very 
original  in  his  effects.  It  matters  little  what  he  is 
giving:  a  woodcutter's  hut;  a  convent;  the  gardens 
of  Silanus  with  their  orange-trees,  cypresses,  and 
oleanders,  and  their  outlook  on  "the  anemones  stream- 
ing down  the  slopes  of  Bethany  "  and  the  dull  green 
of  the  olive  trees;  the  tent  of  Prinzivalle  and  its 
Renaissance  virility  and  luxury;  a  beautiful  woman*; 

*  Silanus  :  She  was  clad  in  a  raiment  that  seemed  woven  of  pearls 
and  dew,  in  a  cloak  of  T3rrian  purple  with  sapphire  ornaments,  and 


^ 


40  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

the  confusion  of  sounds  as  the  huge  convoy  of  wagons 
laden  with  grain  and  fruit  and  wine  starts  out  "  by- 
torchlight  into  the  starry  night";  or  the  bells  and 
bonfires  of  Pisa.*  Everywhere  there  is  the  same 
richness,  the  same  sense  of  color  and  outline. 
Maeterlinck's  settings  and  backgrounds  are  decora- 
tive; so  is,  in  every  detail  almost,  his  picture  of  nature. 
The  imagination  at  work  is  pictorial  rather  than 
plastic.  Apart  from  any  question  of  symbolism, 
one  fails  to  find  in  him  the  massiveness  and  the 
stress  of  Rodin's  sculpture;  his  art  lacks  body; 
and  while  he  gives  the  sense  of  distance  and  visual 
depth,  he  owes  it  to  color  contrasts  and  color  patterns 
and  above  all  else  to  his  skilful  use  of  light.  What 
Rodin  achieves  by  modelling,  Maeterlinck  gains  by  a 
light  that  throws  colors  sharply  against  each  other 
in  place  of  tempering  or  blending  them;  a  light  that 

decked  with  jewels  that  rendered  a  little  heavier  this  eastern  pomp. 
As  for  her  hair,  surely,  unloosed,  it  would  cover  the  surface  of  that 
porphyry  vase  with  an  impenetrable  veil  of  gold. 

*Vanna:  What  is  it,  Gianello?  Ah,  I  see!  They  are  the  bon- 
fires lit  to  celebrate  your  work.  The  walls  are  covered  with  them,  the 
ramparts  flame,  the  campanile  blazes  like  a  joyous  torch!  All  the 
towers  throw  answering  splendors  back  at  the  stars!  The  streets 
are  lanes  of  brightness  in  the  sky  ...  I  know  their  outlines;  I  can 
follow  them  as  clearly  as  when  by  day  I  trod  their  stones  .  .  .  There 
is  the  Piazza  with  its  fiery  dome — and  the  Campo  Santo  like  an 
island  of  shadow.  Life,  which  seemed  gone  forever,  comes  quickly 
back,  shoots  up  the  spires,  rebounds  from  the  stones,  overflows  the 
walls  and  floods  the  country  side  ...  Do  you  not  hear  the  cries,  the 
wild  joy  that  mounts  and  mounts  as  if  the  sea  were  flooding  into 
Pisa — and  the  bells  sing  out  as  on  my  marriage  mom. 


MAETERLINCK  41 

seems  to  sink  into  colors  and  forms  to  varying 
depths — all  the  way  from  a  brilliant  opaqueness  to 
utter  transparency.  There  is  the  suggestion  of 
a  technique  not  unlike  that  of  Max  Reinhardt  in 
his  revolutionary  stage  settings  and  their  draperies 
of  black;  their  bands  of  orange  or  purple;  their 
schematic  lines  and  masses.  Symbolism  apart — 
and  it  must  be  waived  as  long  as  Maeterlinck's  first 
and  second  types  of  beauty  are  the  only  ones  under 
discussion — a  setting  by  Reinhardt  or  Maeterlinck 
is  more  emphatic  in  its  detail  than  the  most  slavishly 
imitative  mise-enscene  of  the  old  school  could  be. 
Their  schematic  originality  sets  off  parts  by  making 
them  striking.  I  do  not  wish  to  press  too  strongly 
the  similarities  in  the  decorative  effects  of  the  two 
men;  there  are  some  very  sharp  differences  as  well; 
nor  do  I  mean  to  deny  that  there  is  in  Maeterlinck's 
art  a  dissolving  or  fusing  principle.  But  that  dis- 
solving principle  is  set  to  work  only  after  a  vivid, 
clear,  and  incisive  imagination  has  caught  the  world 
of  natural  objects  with  great  originality  and  neat- 
ness, or  nettetL  It  is  not  at  all  comparable  to  the 
automatic,  sensuous  unification  or  blurring  of  patches 
of  color  on  which  the  pointillist  counts.  Rather 
does  it  come  in  by  way  of  mood  or  of  a  philosophy  of 
life,  and  as  such  we  must  ask  it  to  wait  while  we  turn 
once  more  to  surface  beauty  and  surface  significance. 
In  The  Blue  Bird  there  are  two  very  different  pic- 
tures, one  of  the  Land  of  Memory,  the  other  of  the 


42  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Land  of  the  Future.  Surely  here  would  be  a  fine 
chance  for  a  formless  imagination  to  indulge  its  lik- 
ing for  the  indefinite;  here  would  seem  the  very- 
place  for  h,alf-lights  and  unsteady  shadows.  But 
that  is  not  what  Maeterhnck  gives.  There  could  be 
no  more  definite  place  than  this  Land  of  Memory; 
it  is  all  so  deHghtfuUy  real  and  matter  of  fact.  One 
feels  sorry  about  Gaffer  Tyl's  bad  leg,  but  sorrier 
still,  as  he  himself  does,  about  the  loss  of  his  pipe; 
one  hears  Granny  Tyl  praise  the  apple  tarts  she  used 
to  bake  and  sees  her  lay  the  table  for  supper  and 
bring  out  the  cabbage  soup:  one  sees  the  children — 
all  sizes  like  '^  a  set  of  Pan's  Pipes  " — come  out  of 
the  house,  Riquette  still  crawling  on  all  fours  and 
Pauline  with  the  same  old  pimple  on  her  nose;  and 
best  of  all  one  sees  Tyltyl  make  a  little  glutton  of 
himself,  spilling  the  soup  and  getting  a  very  real  box 
on  the  ear.  There  is  one  fantastic  idea  which  sets 
all  this  apart,  the  idea  that  the  dead  are  asleep  except 
when  we  think  of  them.  This  whole  life  of  theirs, 
so  true  a  duplicate  of  ours  in  all  its  details,  is  wholly 
dependent  on  our  memory,  at  whose  call  it  rises  above 
or  falls  below  the  horizon  of  consciousness.  The 
idea  and  the  picture,  far  from  clashing,  assist  each 
other.  The  Land  of  the  Future,  although  a  more 
fantastic  conception,  has  an  equally  definite  geog- 
raphy, and  is  visualized  quite  as  sharply — the  steps; 
the  benches;  the  workshops  of  the  Blue  Children; 
the  great  opalescent  swinging  doors;    Father  Time 


MAETERLINCK  43 

with  his  scythe;  and  the  galley  with  white  and  gold 
sails. 

Maeterlinck  is  a  decorative  artist  in  still  another 
sense  than  this  of  strongly  individualizing  the  sur- 
faces of  life.  He  is  constantly  using  nature  as  a 
background  against  which  our  inner  life  is  flung  and 
in  subtle  harmony  or  strong  conflict  with  which  it 
fulfils  its  destiny.  In  Wisdom  and  Destiny  there  is 
image  after  image — a  bit  of  mountain  scenery;  the 
sea  and  the  Ughthouse;  the  palace  and  the  river; 
a  still  lake;  the  play  of  Hght  or  the  stealing  on  of 
darkness;  forest;  cave;  bedrock.  But  the  images 
are  sketched  roughly  and  often  vaguely;  one  gets 
the  impression  of  a  sort  of  alfresco  decoration  meant 
to  set  off  the  spiritual  truths  of  the  book.  The  essays 
Chrysanthemums  and  Old-Fashioned  Flowers  show 
both  types  of  decorative  effect.  There  is  to  be 
found  in  them  a  great  deal  of  fanciful  symbolism; 
they  hint  at  one  or  the  other  of  the  many  incidents  of 
that  soul-drama  in  which  Maeterlinck  shows  so  keen 
an  interest.  But  there  is  plenty  of  sharply  individual 
color.  What  could  show  a  more  delicate  and  original 
painter's  imagination  or  a  more  finely  discriminating 
sense  of  the  pageantry  of  nature  than  his  description 
of  the  autumn  flowers?  On  them  autumn  bestows 
"  all  the  wealth  of  the  twilight  and  the  night,  all  the 
riches  of  the  harvest-time. ''  * 

*  "  .  .  .it  gives  them  all  the  mud-bro  wnwork  of  the  rain  in  the 
woods,  all  the  silvery  fashionings  of  the  mist  in  the  plains,  of  the 


44  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

What  about  the  second  element  in  Maeterlinck's 
conception  of  surface  beauty:  the  impassioned  por- 
trayal of  what  exists  in  us?  As  an  artist  and  phil- 
osopher of  the  inner  life  he  has  definite  limitations  and 
peculiar  merits.  He  gives  moods  and  feelings  rather 
than  character;  and  some  of  these,  such  as  the  fear 
of  death,  religious  fervor,  wonder,  the  clairvoyance 
of  old  age,  and  the  dreamy  gestures  of  an  awakening 
soul,  recur  again  and  again  in  his  pages.  With  one 
or  two  exceptions  he  has  failed  to  give  in  his  plays 
and  essays  sharply  individualized  characters  with 
marked  groups  of  interests  and  unforgettable  spiritual 
conflicts.  The  one  outstanding  exception  is  Mary 
oj  Magdala.  Sister  Beatrice  and  Monna  Vanna  are 
intensely  dramatic  and  have  at  times  a  very  strong 
individual  appeal,  but  there  is,  at  least  in  Monna 
Vanna,  an  intermittent  blurring  of  lines  which  makes 
a  character  like  Prinzivalle  or  Monna  Vanna  uncon- 
vincing. If  you  go  back  to  the  early  puppet  plays 
the  secret  will  reveal  itself.  Maeterlinck,  who  shows 
a  fine  sense  of  form  and  a  graphic  and  decorative 

frost  and  the  snow  in  the  gardens.  It  permits  them,  above  all,  to 
draw  at  will  upon  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  the  dead  leaves  and 
the  expiring  forest.  It  allows  them  to  deck  themselves  with  the 
golden  sequins,  the  bronze  medals,  the  silver  buckles,  the  copper 
spangles,  the  elfin  plumes,  the  powdered  amber,  the  burnt  topazes, 
the  neglected  pearls,  the  smoked  amethysts,  the  calcined  garnets, 
all  the  dead  but  still  dazzling  jewellery  which  the  North  Wind  heaps 
up  in  the  hollows  of  the  ravines  and  foot-paths;  but  it  insists  that 
they  shall  remain  faithful  to  their  old  masters  and  wear  the  livery 
of  the  drab  and  weary  months  that  gave  them  birth.*' 


MAETERLINCK  45 

touch  in  his  descriptions  of  the  world  without,  is 
in  his  portrayal  of  the  world  within  neither  graphic 
nor  decorative,  but  atmospheric.  In  plays  like  The 
Blind,  The  Seven  Princesses j  The  Intruder,  The  Death 
of  Tintagiles,  and  Pelleas  and  Melisande  the  j&rst 
impression  is  one  of  muffled  pathos,  but  as  this  dies 
down  it  is  succeeded  by  a  sense  of  spiritual  unreality. 
These  men  and  women  who  face  life  with  the  irresolu- 
tion or  bewilderment  or  wonder  of  a  child  somehow 
seem  unreal;  and  the  cause  of  that  unreality  is 
Maeterlinck's  atmospheric  method.  They  have  the 
blurred  unreality  of  figures  in  a  fog — one  gets  a  sense 
of  faltering  Hues,  of  insecure  distances,  and  of  a 
merging  of  greys  and  blacks,  which  produces  weird 
and  monotonous  imaginative  effects.  An  emotion 
or  a  mood — a  mere  wisp  of  color — is  shaded  off  and 
made  to  spread  until  it  becomes  one  with  all  that 
surrounds  it.  Something  like  this  is  to  be  found  in 
his  essays  also.  For  him  the  inner  life  has  its  soft- 
and  gentle  beauty,  and  that  beauty  he  has  given 
delicately  in  essays  like  Silence,  The  Inner  Beauty,  The 
Deeper  Life,  The  Awakening  of  the  Soul,  Sincerity. 
Everywhere  there  seems  to  be  a  strange  formlessness 
as  well  as  a  subtle  charm.  They  would  be  the  despair 
of  the  sculptor  with  his  tactile  imagination  and  his 
need  of  plastic  forms,  for  there  is  here  no  outline  to 
follow;  there  are  no  sharply  individuaHzed  surfaces 
such  as  distinguish  the  art  of  a  Rodin.  They  would 
be  the  delight  of  the  atmospheric  painter,  for  here 


46  ARTISTS  AND   THINKERS 

everything  dissolves,  everything  loses  itself  in  a 
stream  of  light  and  shade.  Much  might  be  said 
of  Maeterlinck's  development  as  a  Thinker  and  an 
Artist.  The  later  plays  and  essays  differ  widely 
from  the  early  plays.  The  change  is  one  of  world- 
view,  of  interpreting  differently  the  meaning  of  life, 
and  as  such  has  a  very  important  bearing  on  Maeter- 
linck's third  type  of  beauty,  but  it  also  affects  his 
portrayal  of  the  surface  beauty  of  the  inner  Ufe.  The 
atmospheric  effects  of  the  puppet  plays  in  some  ways 
contrast  sharply  with  those  of  the  essays.  They  left 
the  impression  of  dark,  uncertain  figures  plunged 
into  a  fog;  but  here  all  things  are  steeped  in  light, 
and  they  themselves  have  taken  on  the  nature  of 
light. 

Under  the  influence  of  an  irradiating  imagination 
even  the  twilight  recesses  of  consciousness  begin  to 
glow;  and  thoughts  and  feelings,  however  slight^ 
become  pencillings  of  light  in  a  mystic  transcription 
of  experience.  It  is  strange  how  fond  the  mystic 
is  of  hght;  how  he  uses  it  again  and  again  in  his 
analogies.  This  is  true  of  Plotinus,  of  Ruysbroeck, 
to  judge  by  passages  translated  by  Maeterlinck  in 
On  Emerson  and  Other  Essays;  it  is  true  of  Maeter- 
linck himself,  for  a  mystic  he  has  remained  in  spite 
of  Stoics  and  evolutionists.  When  Marcus  Aurelius 
gives  the  drama  of  the  soul  his  thought  is  radiant, 
but  it  is  not  like  Maeterlinck's,  formless  and  tenuous. 
In  Hardy  again  there  is  nothing  at  all  like  an  atmos- 


MAETERLINCK  47 

pheric  treatment  of  the  inner  Kfe,  for  while  he  inter- 
prets man  as  deeply  rooted  in  nature  and  is  interested 
in  nature  as  the  voice  of  law,  ever  changing  and  ever 
changeless,  and  in  man  as  the  life  of  all  manner  of 
instincts  sucked  in  from  the  cosmic  soil,  he  has  given 
us  very  sharp  and  accurate  pictures  of  natural  scenery 
— he  knows  his  Dorsetshire  thoroughly — and  has 
portrayed  character  in  all  its  individuality  and 
jaggedness  as  well  as  in  its  blindness. 

Nothing  can  serve  better  to  emphasize  Maeter- 
linck's atmospheric  method  than  to  contrast  it  with 
the  plastic  and  mathematical  method  of  Dante. 
Clearly  visualized  as  is  Maeterlinck's  Land  of  Mem- 
ory, it  pales  in  comparison  with  Dante's  Hell,  Here 
everything  is  worked  out  with  a  mathematician's 
precision.  Circle  after  Circle,  down  to  the  minutest 
details  of  topography;  one  sees  genius  in  the  r61e  of 
architect  and  carpenter.  Every  punishment  has 
its  definite  symbolical  meaning;  and  every  shape, 
however  fantastic  or  brief  in  appearance,  has  its 
definitely  articulated  inner  Kfe,  gHmpses  of  which  we 
get  as  we  listen  to  Guido  da  Montefeltro  or  Ugolino 
or  Paolo  da  Rimini.  Both  men  are  among  the  finest 
poets  of  color  and  light.  In  contrast  to  Maeterlinck, 
Dante  gives  sundered,  blocked-out  effects  in  his 
symbolical  as  well  as  his  decorative  use  of  light.  In 
his  Paradise  he  has  attempted  a  City  of  Light,  and 
he  has  very  ingeniously  drawn  individual  structures 
and  contrasts  from  so  unpromising  a  building  material. 


48  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

The  secret  of  his  method  is  combination:  combina- 
tion of  planets,  of  lights  and  fires,  of  colors.  One 
feels  the  studied  arrangement,  hears  at  times  the 
creaking  of  this  Divine  Mill,  and  comes  to  see  some 
point  in  Schopenhauer's  remark  that  the  Paradise 
reminded  him  of  nothing  so  much  as  the  illuminations 
of  Vauxhall.  In  Maeterlinck  there  is  no  piecing 
together,  no  structure;  nothing  but  a  flood  of  light 
and  an  inundating  study  of  the  soul.  One  feels 
immersed  in  a  medium  which  allows  neither  foothold 
nor  handhold. 

Surface  beauty  is  not  the  last  word  in  Maeterlinck's 
aesthetics.  Nor  is  it  in  his  art.  We  have  his  own 
word  for  it:  "  ...  and  lastly,  enveloping  the  whole 
work  and  forming  its  atmosphere,  the  idea  formed  by 
the  poet  of  the  unknown  in  which  the  beings  and  things 
he  calls  forth  are  drifting,  and  of  the  mystery  which 
rules  and  judges  them  and  presides  over  their  destiny  J^ 
This  suggests  what  is  most  interesting  in  the  Thinker 
and  most  characteristic  of  the  Artist;  more  than  that, 
it  suggests  the  common  wellspring  of  both.  We  are 
coming  to  look  more  and  more  closely  for  the  hidden 
motifs  of  a  philosopher's  world-view;  and  we  are 
realizing  more  and  more  that  an  artist's  world-view 
is  an  integral  part  of  his  art.  The  artist  himself,  if 
he  is  at  all  reflective,  will  regard  it  as  such.  Rodin 
insists  that  he  is  shadowing  forth  the  meaning  of  the 
universe  and  not  merely  toying  with  forms  and  colors; 


I 


I 


MAETERLINCK  49 

Meredith  has  his  philosophy  of  the  comic  spirit, 
Browning  his,  of  self-realization;  Anatole  France 
interprets  as  well  as  describes;  and  Hardy  looks 
upon  human  Uf e  as  the  narrow  end  of  a  funnel  widen- 
ing out  into  all  the  problems  of  evolutionism. 

Maeterlinck's  interest  in  a  symbolical  and  spiritual 
factor  in  art  can  best  be  seen  and  followed  in  his 
theory  of  the  drama.  When  he  goes  to  the  theatre, 
he  tells  us,  he  feels  as  though  he  were  spending  a  few 
hours  with  his  ancestors.  "  I  am  shown  a  deceived 
husband  killing  his  wife,  a  woman  poisoning  her  lover, 
a  son  avenging  his  father,  a  father  slaughtering  his 
children,  children  putting  their  father  to  death, 
murdered  kings,  ravished  virgins,  imprisoned  citizens 
— in  a  word,  all  the  sublimity  of  tradition,  but  alas, 
how  superficial  and  material!  Blood,  surf  ace- tears, 
and  death!  "  This  might  seem  to  be  an  arraignment 
of  melodrama;  but  it  goes  much  beyond  that,  for 
what  is  the  tragedy  of  to-day  is  often  the  melodrama 
of  to-morrow.  To  him  the  old  drama  seems  an  an- 
achronism. It  gave  the  clash  of  passion  with  passion 
intensely,  directly,  brutally;  and  the  passions  whose 
clash  it  gave  were  themselves  brutal  and  elemental. 
But  to  us  with  centuries  of  control  at  our  backs, 
and  with  reflected  feelings  and  an  oblique  emotional 
life,  these  clashes  seem  crude — except  when  we 
relapse,  for  an  hour  or  two,  to  the  primitive.  Maeter- 
linck, however,  does  not  commit  Tolstoy's  mistake 


50  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

in  dealing  with  the  Greek  drama  and  Shakespeare. 
Where  Tolstoy  belittles,  he  admires,  because  he  sees, 
not  merely  crude  passion,  but  beauty  and  significance. 
In  Wisdom  and  Destiny  he  insists  on  the  spiritual 
significance  of  Hamlet,  King  Lear,  and  (Edipus  Rex; 
and  he  alludes  elsewhere  to  the  decorative  beauty 
and  picturesque  grandeur  of  a  play  like  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  But  he  claims  that  we  have  lost,^  and  cannot 
recover  in  any  real  sense,  the  stately  grandeur  of  an 
^schylus  or  the  picturesqueness  of  the  Renaissance. 
As  for  the  spiritual  significance  of  the  Greek  drama, 
it,  too,  has  been  lost.  To  us  the  drama  of  soul  and 
fate  presents  itself  in  other  ways  and  plays  itself  off 
with  other  meanings.  Why,  then,  if  we  cannot  recover 
what  is  really  of  value  in  the  old  drama,  should  we  be 
so  intent  on  saving  what  is  valueless?  Why  should 
we  not  attempt  a  drama  which  reflects  in  its  incidents, 
its  characters,  and  subtle  suggestions  the  meanings 
of  our  life?  These  seem  to  Maeterlinck  to  be  three: 
a  lively  and  persistent  interest  in  the  problem  of 
the  clash  between  passion  and  duty;  a  complex  and 
penetrative  view  of  consciousness;  new  cosmic  beliefs 
gradually  taking  shape  under  the  stress  of  science 
and  of  new  spiritual  needs. 

To  him  the  first  appears  clearly  in  the  social  dramas 
of  Ibsen  and  in  the  problem  play,  which  developed 
largely  under  their  influence.  Of  course,  such  a 
generalization  has  its  weaknesses;  the  struggle  of 
duty  with  passion  is  one  of  the  oldest  motifs  in  tragedy, 


MAETERLINCK  51 

but  on  the  whole  it  is  true  that  there  is  something 
new:  a  challenging  criticism  which  does  not  stop 
short  of  the  problematic  in  morality  itself.  It  is 
interesting  to  watch  Ibsen  at  his  work  of  uncovering 
"  irrational  survivals  "  in  our  moral  habits  and  ideals, 
of  pointing  to  shabby  and  worn  places  in  our  system 
of  duties.  He  is  a  diagnostician  ever  on  the  alert 
for  possible  flaws  and  danger.  Still  his  piece-by-piece 
social  criticism  seems  to  us  just  a  bit  old-fashioned. 
We  demand  a  more  subtle  and  synthetic  challenge; 
such  as  we  get  in  Monna  Vanna,  where  the  last  act 
leaves  us  in  a  curiously  divided  mood  between  a 
morality  that  is  no  longer  felt  to  be  final  and  a  new 
morality,  promising  but  as  yet  unformed,  except  for 
longings  and  vague  anticipations. 

It  is  clear  that  Maeterlinck  looks  beyond  the  prob- 
lem play  for  a  new  and  adequate  drama.  He  turns 
next  to  what  he  regards  as  the  second  great  interest 
of  our  times:  the  exploitation  of  consciousness.  The 
psychological  soul-drama  seems  to  him  to  express 
certain  modern  demands.  We  ask  for  a  poetic 
interpretation  and  exploration  of  the  utmost  reaches 
of  the  inner  life  even  to  the  abnormal  or  to  feelings 
whose  very  nature  it  is  to  be  still  and  inactive. 
Maeterlinck's  favorite  instance  of  such  a  soul-drama 
is  Ibsen's  The  Master  Builder.  He  might  have  added 
The  Lady  from  the  Sea,  Hauptmann's  Sunken  Bell 
and  Hannele,  Strindberg's  Dance  of  Death,  and  most 
of  his  own  plays.    He  alludes  to  what  he  calls  the 


52  ARTISTS   AND  THINKERS 

somnambulistic  character  of  The  Master  Builder  and 
to  the  secondary  dialogue,  which  runs  a  ghostly 
parallel  to  the  ordinary  exchange  of  words,  and 
which  gives  an  echo — "  extremely  attenuated  and 
variable  '' — of  what  passes  in  the  depths  of  conscious- 
ness. "  Side  by  side  with  the  necessary  dialogue 
will  you  almost  always  find  another  dialogue  that 
seems  superfluous;  but  examine  it  carefully,  and  it 
will  be  borne  home  to  you  that  this  is  the  only  one 
that  the  soul  can  listen  to  profoundly,  for  here  alone 
is  it  the  soul  that  is  being  addressed."  This  inter- 
est in  the  subconscious  has  remained  a  definite  part 
of  Maeterlinck's  art  and  philosophy;  it  appears 
strongly  in  his  essays  as  well  as  in  his  plays,  and  is 
responsible  for  books  like  Our  Eternity  and  The 
Unknown  Guest. 

This  readily  suggests  what  Maeterlinck  regards  as 
the  third  striking  thing  in  the  intellectual,  moral,  and 
artistic  world  of  to-day:  new  cosmic  beliefs  and  a 
new,  tentative  way  of  defining  man's  relation  to  the 
Universe.  He  himself  marks  the  transition  in  sen- 
tences like  the  following.  "  Hilda  and  Solness  are,  I 
believe,  the  first  characters  in  drama  who  feel,  for 
an  instant,  that  they  are  living  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  soul;  and  the  discovery  of  this  essential  life 
that  exists  in  them,  beyond  the  life  of  every  day, 
comes  fraught  with  terror.  ...  A  new,  indescrib- 
able power  dominates  this  somnambuhstic  drama. 
All  that  is  said  therein  at  once  hides  and  reveals  the 


MAETERLINCK  53 

sources  of  an  unknown  life.'^  This  unknown  is  in  us 
and  it  is  in  all  around  us.  Of  this  problem  of  the 
unknown  the  new  drama  will  make  full  use;  it  will 
seek  to  trace  the  "  intangible  and  unceasing  striving 
of  the  soul  towards  its  own  beauty  and  truth/'  and 
it  will  seek  to  understand  and  exploit  artistically  the 
mystery  of  the  Universe,  the  new  mystery  of  the 
Universe.  This  new  drama  is  still  only  an  ideal,  and 
Maeterlinck  would  be  the  first  to  disclaim  for  his 
plays  and  essays  more  than  a  slight  approach  to  this 
new  soul-attitude  and  world-view.  Of  this,  however, 
he  would  feel  sure,  that  in  these  new  interests  and 
developments  lie  the  possibilities  of  a  new  art. 

This  discussion  of  Maeterlinck's  aesthetics  of  the 
drama  has  served  its  purpose:  it  has  given  certain 
clues  as  to  what  he  considers  the  third  and  essential 
type  of  beauty.  It  is  from  here  that  any  further 
analysis  of  Maeterlinck  as  an  Artist  and  Thinker 
must  start. 

Passing  from  Maeterlinck  the  decorative  artist 
and  poet  of  surface  beauty  to  Maeterlinck  the  artistic 
and  philosophical  interpreter  of  meanings,  the  first 
striking  thing  is  a  sense  of  the  fragmentary.  This 
appears  in  a  double  sense,  and  seems  to  violate  the 
fundamental  principles  of  art  and  philosophy.  The 
dramatist,  especially,  aims  to  give  well-rounded 
characters  and  a  circumscribed  group  of  incidents; 
and  within  this  circle  he  sets  interest  against  interest, 


54  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

purpose  against  purpose,  complication  against  com- 
plication.   And  even  if  he  is  quite  modern  and  offers 
"  a  slice  of  life,"  cutting  into  character  and  incident 
at  random,  he  still  does  not  give  the  impression  of  the 
fragmentary  nature  of  either.    He  may  look  down  the 
road  to  heredity  or  trace  the  play  of  instinct.     I  may 
stand  on  a  hill  and  watch  a  road  narrow  down  to  a 
ribbon  and  lose  itself  in  the  distance;   if  I  do,  I  get 
the  impression  of  endlessness  or  of  a  breaking  off; 
and  that  is  all  I  get  from  this  type  of  drama;  and 
not  the  sense  of  the  fragmentary.     The  philosopher 
ordinarily  loves  completeness  quite  as  much  as  the 
artist,  and  has  his  own  world-circle  in  which  every- 
thing is  related  and  set  in  order.    If  he  comes  upon 
anything  patchy  or  incomplete,  anything  in  the  way 
of  odds  and  ends  of  experience,  he  puts  it  into  his 
little  playhouse  of  reason,  and  what  were  fragments 
become  very  methodical  toys.    But   Maeterlinck — 
I  know  of  no  one  who  leaves  so  vivid  an  impression 
of  the  fragmentariness  of  life,  inner  and  outer.    What 
we  say  and  what  we  do  is  but  a  scrap  of  what  we 
think  and  feel;    and  our  thoughts  and  feelings  give 
incompletely  or  not  at  all  what  passes  in  the  depth 
of  our  souls.     In  The  Princess  Maleine  and  The  Blind 
— one  might  really  include  all  his  earlier  plays — 
there  is  a  sort  of  echoing  repetition  of  exclamations, 
words,  phrases.     It  is  easy  to  burlesque  it;   it  often 
comes  perilously  near  to  turning  the  tragic  into  the 
ludicrous.    But  for  all  the  evident  lack  of  skill  there 


MAETERLINCK  55 

is  a  reason  for  this  echoing  method.  Maeterlinck 
wishes  to  suggest  individuals  who  are  struggling 
with  their  own  great  inner  Unknown  as  well  as  with 
life;  who  somehow  feel  the  meaninglessness  or  in- 
adequacy of  words;  who  grope  about  in  a  confused 
and  stumbling  way  for  their  own  selves;  the  monot- 
ony is  meant  to  mark  their  bewilderment.  One  feels 
throughout  it  all  that  not  even  omniscience  would 
give  to  these  souls  rest  and  self-possession.  For 
this  larger  meaning  which  they  seek  so  obstinately 
and  blindly — what  is  it?  Not  even  omniscience  could 
tell. 

Here  Kes  the  difference  between  a  mystic  like 
Maeterlinck  and  a  philosopher  like  Hegel.  Both 
use  extensively  the  contrast  between  the  lesser  and 
the  larger  meaning;  both  are  subtle  interpreters  of 
consciousness.  Hegel  insists  that  all  things  are 
interlaced,  and  that  you  cannot  define  anything 
except  in  terms  of  all  its  relations,  but  he  gives  you  to 
understand  that  reality  is  an  orderly  and  complete 
developing-system,  and  with  him  the  stress  is  every- 
where on  completion  rather  than  on  fragmentariness. 
Omniscience  would  not  fail  here.  But  with  Maeter- 
linck all  the  emphasis  is  on  the  fragmentary  character 
of  experience  and,  one  might  add,  on  the  fragmentary 
character  of  reality.  Even  his  ^'  faith  in  the  idea  of 
the  universe  '' — his  belief  that  some  day  the  universe 
will  no  longer  be  fitfully  illumined  by  science,  but  will 
stand  revealed  in  its  beauty  and  reasonableness,  is 


56  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

interpreted  as  an  instinct.  The  emphasis  in  this 
outer  mystery  as  well  seems  to  be  on  the  fragmentary. 

It  would  be  a  useless  bit  of  generalizing  to  refer 
to  this  sense  of  the  fragmentary  and  fail  to  indicate 
how  differently  it  shows  itself  in  the  earlier  and  the 
later  interpretations  Maeterlinck  gives  of  the  universe 
and  of  consciousness.  While  this  change  was  one  of 
slow  development,  and  not  the  outcome  of  a  crisis 
in  the  Artist  and  the  Thinker,  it  is  none  the  less 
momentous.     One  cannot  afford  to  overlook  it. 

Here  is  Maeterlinck's  earlier  world-view.  Speak- 
ing of  his  dramas  from  The  Intruder  to  The  Death 
of  TintagileSj  he  remarks:  "  One  is  aware  here  of 
vast,  invisible  powers  of  destiny  whose  purposes  no 
one  knows,  but  whom  the  spirit  of  the  drama  supposes 
to  be  malevolent,  watchful  of  all  our  actions;  the 
enemies  of  laughter,  of  life,  of  peace,  of  happiness. 
Here  innocently  hostile  destinies  are  woven  and 
unravelled,  to  the  ruin  of  all — under  the  saddened 
eyes  of  the  wisest,  who  foresee  the  future,  but  cannot 
change  in  the  least  the  cruel,  inflexible  game  that 
Love  and  Death  play  among  mortals."  He  then 
hints  at  a  capricious  Fatality;  at  a  deep  '^  night  of 
nature  "  whence  dart  Death  and  other  cruel  forces 
to  destroy  the  life  and  happiness  of  man.  Of  these 
forces  Death  seems  the  most  destructive  and  capri- 
cious; it  is  blind,  it  pounces  at  random;  too  quick  a 
movement  will  draw  its  leap. 

There  is  something  na'ive  about  this  use  of  the 


MAETERLINCK  57 

terrible  and  the  terrifying;  this  notion  that  nature  is 
a  circle  of  darkness  about  human  life,  with  nightly 
alarms  and  forays  by  destiny — no  one  knowing  at 
what  point,  in  what  strength,  to  what  end.  But  it  is 
really  nothing  but  a  dramatization  of  fear:  an  ill 
defined  fear  that  knows  not  which  way  to  turn.  For, 
after  all,  this  world  of  Maeterlinck's  is  theirs  that  live 
in  it;  it  reflects  their  consciousness.  And  so  the 
interpretation  of  the  inner  life  links  itself  with  the 
outer.  These  men  and  women  of  his  early  plays, 
whom  Maeterlinck  calls  '^  slight,  fragile  beings, 
weeping,  passively  pensive,"  seem  to  be  rousing 
themselves  from  a  painful  dream.  With  a  confused 
and  heavy  sound  their  tears  drop  into  the  abyss  of 
destiny.  But  the  confusion  and  heaviness  is  in  their 
souls;  there  is  in  them  no  strengthening  and  sharpen- 
ing of  consciousness  by  purpose;  no  lightening  by 
confidence;  no  clearing  by  self-criticism.  They  are 
exquisitely  responsive,  but  to  suggestions  of  one 
kind  only;  they  fear,  for  themselves  or  others;  a 
vague,  nameless  dread  in  forms  acute  or  subtle  invades 
their  whole  emotional  life.  They  owe  their  flickering 
existence  quite  as  much  to  their  own  inner  weakness 
as  to  the  gusts  of  Fate. 

This  earlier  world-view  of  Maeterlinck's  might  be 
symbolized  in  some  such  way  as  this.  Imagine  a 
funnel-shaped  abyss  in  the  middle  of  a  wind-swept 
plateau.  The  depth  seems  limitless,  and  out  of  it 
there  float  aimlessly  wraithlike  forms — bits  of  feel- 


58  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

ing,  of  purpose,  thoughts,  fragments  of  consciousness, 
which  are  shaken  out  and  impelled  upward  by  one 
knows  not  what  longing  or  premonition.  As  they 
reach  the  rim  and  seem  about  to  shape  themselves  to 
some  sort  of  orderly  Hfe,  a  rush  of  air,  sweeping 
across  the  plateau,  bears  down  on  them  and  scatters 
and  tosses  them  to  nothingness.  The  gust  comes 
no  one  knows  whence,  and  is  the  mere  fragmentary 
presence  of  a  power  whose  extent  and  whose  destruc- 
tiveness  no  one  can  measure.  This  picture  visualizes, 
I  think,  the  intensive  and  extensive  fragmentariness 
which  marks  so  sharply  MaeterUnck's  interpretation 
of  consciousness  and  of  the  universe. 

The  later  world-view  is  quite  different,  but  shows 
the  sense  of  the  fragmentary  just  as  strongly.  The 
outer  mystery,  the  universe,  has  been  reinterpreted; 
it  is  no  longer  thought  of  as  an  abode  of  terror  or 
a  malevolent,  clumsy  force  bursting  in  on  human 
happiness.  This  change  in  Maeterirnck  is  generally 
attributed  to  the  influence  of  evolutionism  and  Stoi- 
cism; and  they  have  in  fact  had  much  to  do  with  it. 
But  a  man  does  not  change  a  world-attitude  as  he 
would  a  suit  of  clothes — it  is  not  so  external  a  thing; 
and  so  I  should  be  inclined  to  assign  the  larger  share 
in  this  change,  striking  as  it  is,  to  something  much 
more  intimate  and  subtle — the  gradual  ripening  and 
mellowing  and  settling  of  Maeterlinck's  artistic  per- 
sonality. It  is  well  to  remember  that  evolutionism, 
as  a  philosophy  and  a  faith,  lends  itself  readily  to 


MAETERLINCK  59 

either  the  gospel  of  hope  or  the  gospel  of  despair. 
Not  enough  has  been  made  of  such  personal  drama- 
tizations of  scientific  and  philosophical  theories. 
The  old  dramatization  of  evolution  is  familiar: 
it  is  the  "  claw  and  talon  '^  theory.  We  were  asked 
to  observe  the  cruelty  and  wastefulness  of  Nature, 
to  watch  her  snufl&ng  out  Uves  or  scattering  pain 
throughout  her  realm.  So  strongly  was  the  thing 
dramatized  that  one  could  almost  hear  the  panting 
and  the  groans  of  the  creatures  caught  in  the  deadly 
^*  struggle  for  existence "  and  the  thud  of  those 
that  were  to  be  "  eliminated."  That  old  melodrama, 
reeking  with  blood  and  noisy  with  strife,  has  now 
gone  out  of  fashion.  Instead  of  it  there  is  often  a 
very  suave,  very  confident  evolutionism,  which 
looks  upon  "  elimination  "  as  one  would  on  discard- 
ing in  a  game  of  cards,  and  on  nature  as  a  system  of 
^^  stepping  stones,"  nicely  blocked  out  and  leading 
to  some  sort  of  a  palace  of  the  future — all  light  and 
no  lines.  The  scientist  smiles  at  both  pictures;  he 
is  not  given  to  personal  reactions.  What  Maeter- 
linck the  riper  artist  offers,  is  a  dramatization  of 
hope,  as  contrasted  with  his  earlier  dramatization  of 
fear;  and  in  it  two  ideas  are  constantly  staged: 
that  of  a  more  and  more  rational  universe  and  that 
of  a  progressive  mastery  of  nature.  Either  will 
break  the  point  of  evil.  But  when  I  ask  myself. 
What  is  the  exact  nature  of  this  new  universe  of 
Maeterlinck's?  I  find  in  Wisdom  and  Destiny,  The 


60  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Leaf  of  Olive  and  other  essays  certain  hints:  such  as 
its  probable  non-moral  character;  its  creative  fash- 
ioning of  new  situations  and  new  laws;  its  orderU- 
ness;  its  surprises;  and  its  complexity.  But  when 
I  try  to  piece  these  hints  together,  with  simile  after 
simile,  image  after  image,  crowding  in  on  me,  I 
find  it  impossible  to  shape  them  to  a  well-outlined, 
well-built  City  of  Light;  just  as  I  found  it  impossible, 
in  Maeterlinck's  earlier  plays,  to  trace  the  complete 
Ineaments  of  a  City  of  Darkness.  Everywhere  the 
stress  is  not  on  finality,  but  on  the  incomplete,  the 
fragmentary.  Here  is  Maeterlinck's  way  of  drama- 
tizing this  "  background  of  light": 

"  It  seems  as  though  we  heard  those  movements: 
the  sound  of  superhuman  footsteps,  an  enormous 
door  opening,  a  breath  caressing  us,  or  light  com- 
ing; we  do  not  know;  but  expectation  at  this  pitch 
is  an  ardent  and  marvellous  state  of  Ufe,  the  fairest 
period  of  happiness,  its  youth,  its  childhood." 

This  is  a  very  efiEective  companion  picture  to  that 
of  the  sudden  forays  of  a  stealthily  moving,  malev- 
olent Fate. 

This  later  conception  of  the  imiverse  suggests  in 
some  ways  a  transformation  scene  in  a  spectacle,  in 
which  curtain  after  curtain  is  lifted,  each  filmier  and 
more  transparent,  until,  with  the  last  bit  of  gauze 
withdrawn,  the  scene  stands  out  sharply  in  all  its 
details.  But — and  this  is  an  all-important  difference 
— one  never  feels  in  Maeterhnck  that  the  last  bit  of 


MAETERLINCK  61 

gauze  has  been  withdrawn  or  that  there  is  a  last  bit 
of  gauze  or  a  sharp  and  final  scene;  one  is  conscious 
of  an  endless  succession  of  luminous  veils. 

But  what  of  Maeterlinck's  reinterpretation  of 
consciousness,  the  inner  mystery?  And  how  does 
his  sense  of  the  fragmentary  show  itself  in  that? 
The  later  work  reveals  an  increasing  interest  in  con- 
sciousness and  a  growing  disposition — for  which 
Stoicism  must  receive  part  credit — of  relating  in- 
timately character  and  destiny,  universe  and  attitude. 
Certain  earlier  notions  persist:  that  of  the  abysmal 
nature  of  consciousness,  that  of  the  subconscious, 
that  of  instinct  and  premonition  as  things  deeper 
than  reason  or  purpose,  that  of  slight,  expressive 
gestures.  But  consciousness,  instead  of  faltering  and 
flickering  in  the  darkness,  radiates  a  strong,  even  light 
of  confidence  and  happiness.  Happiness  is  now  the 
key-note.  Maeterlinck  is  fond  of  the  image  of 
**  inner  treasure  "  crystallizing  in  the  subterranean 
regions  of  the  soul  and  brought  to  light  now  and  then 
in  a  moment  of  exceptional  strength,  in  an  experience 
of  exceptional  nobility  or  beauty.  This  is  a  good 
companion  picture  to  that  of  bits  of  consciousness 
floating  upward  in  an  abyss.  Here  as  well  as  there, 
one  gets  the  impression  of  intensive  fragmentariness, 
for  how  much  soul  there  is  no  one  knows,  and  how 
much  treasure  there  is  no  one  knows;  what  we  are 
aware  of  are  hits  of  treasure  flung  up  from  depths  not 
to  be  measured. 


62  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Further  pursuit  of  this  tenuous  Artist  and  some- 
what shadowy  Thinker  would  yield,  among  much 
that  was  new,  many  additional  instances  of  his 
sense  of  decorative  beauty,  of  his  atmospheric  method, 
of  his  irradiating  imagination  and  of  his  sense  of  the 
fragmentary. 

Note:  In  quoting  from  Maeterlinck  I  have  made  use  of  the 
translations  of  Sutro,  Teixeira  de  Mattos,  and  Coleman,  and  wish 
to  acknowledge  such  use. 


i 


IV 
WAGNER 

So  your  fugue  broadens  and  thickens 
Greatens  and  deepens  and  lengthens, 
Till  we  exclaim — "  But  where's  music, 
the  dickens?  " 

— Browning. 

Once  more  he  stept  into  the  street 

And  to  his  lips  again 
Laid  his  long  pipe  of  smooth  straight 
cane: 
And  ere  he  blew  three  notes  (such  sweet 
Soft  notes  as  yet  musician's  cunning 
Never  gave  the  enraptured  ear) — 
— Browning. 

It  is  for  the  expert  in  music  to  give  a  study  of 
Wagner  the  composer,  the  artist;  for  he  alone  is 
competent  to  sketch  the  history  of  music  and  to  dis- 
cuss Wagner's  innovations  in  harmonics,  characteriza- 
tion, and  structure;  to  him  alone  can  we  look  for  a 
comparative  study  of  scores  and  a  subtle  apprecia- 
tion of  musical  resources.  The  time  has  come  for 
such  a  study;  Wagnerian  music  has  emerged  from 
periods  of  rabid  abuse  and  blind  idolatry,  and  readily 
submits  to,  in  fact  calls  for,  a  critical  estimate. 

63 


64  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Meanwhile  there  is  for  one  who  is  not  a  musical 
expert  a  problem  of  great  interest:  the  study  of 
Wagner  the  essayist  and  reflective  artist.  Beyond  a 
doubt  Wagner  takes  himself  very  seriously  as  a 
Thinker,  and  seeks  to  develop  and  justify  his  artistic 
ideals  in  a  series  of  essays;  some  of  which  are  brief, 
like  those  on  Beethoven,  on  acting  and  on  the  theatre, 
on  opera,  on  composing,  on  the  artist  and  the  public, 
others  long  and  constructive,  like  The  Work  of  Art 
of  the  Future,  Opera  and  Drama,  Art  and  Religion 
and  Art  and  Revolution,  None  of  them  is  easy  or 
attractive  reading;  they  are  top-heavy  and  lack  the 
charming  allusiveness  of  Rodin  and  the  sparkle  and 
fire  of  Nietzsche.  Add  to  a  sober  and  clumsy  man- 
ner of  thinking  an  enthusiasm  that  is  not  well  mixed, 
and  the  result  is  at  once  heavy  and  yeasty.  But  for 
all  that  they  are  of  value  in  helping  disclose  Wagner's 
development,  and  in  showing  how  certain  beliefs  and 
dissatisfactions  shaped  themselves  to  an  ideal  of  a 
true  art  and  a  music  of  the  future. 

Wagner,  like  Rodin,  for  many  years  stood  alone. 
A  man  so  original  and  revolutionary  in  his  views  and 
his  technique  and  of  so  hungry  an  individualism 
in  thought  and  feeling  would  naturally  draw  criticism 
or  expose  himself  to  neglect.  Matters  would  hardly 
be  mended  by  his  often  tactless  utterances  and  his 
tenacity  in  clinging  to  his  ideal.  For  it  was  an 
ideal,  an  earnest  desire  to  show  the  way  to  something 
better,  and  not  presumption,  that  led  to  Wagner's 


WAGNER  65 

attacks  on  Italian  and  French  opera,  and  on  musical 
and  theatrical  conditions  in  Germany.  This  is  the 
high-pitched  message  of  such  early  essays  as  Art  and 
Revolution  and  The  Work  of  Art  of  the  Future;  and 
there  is  always  the  shadowing  and  disheartening 
thought  that  things  could  not  be  worse.  The 
refrain  is  throughout  the  same:  there  is  no  national 
theatre;  the  state  does  nothing  for  art;  there  are 
no  suitable  conservatories  and  training  schools  for 
singers;  the  public  is  indifferent  and  flocks  stupidly 
to  artificial  and  ill  rendered  operas  and  ballets;  music 
and  poetry  are  feeble  to  the  point  of  painfulness. 
While  there  is  in  all  this  more  than  a  hint  of  Schiller, 
there  is  also  a  great  deal  of  bitter  first-hand  experience 
with  the  state,  the  stage,  and  the  art  criticism  of  the 
day;  an  experience  made  all  the  more  bitter  because 
Wagner  was  a  man  of  ideals  and  large  ambitions. 
In  185 1  in  the  preface  to  Opera  and  Drama  he  deplores 
the  artistic  conditions  he  sees  everywhere;  and  in  the 
preface  to  the  second  edition,  written  in  1868,  he 
protests  in  a  mood  of  discouragement  against  the 
stubborn  and  senseless  way  in  which  the  public 
misinterpreted  his  theories  and  music  aHke.  And 
yet  in  those  seventeen  years  he  had  composed  Tristan 
und  Isolde  and  Die  Meister singer,  two  of  his  greatest 
operas,  and  had  written  the  text  and  much  of  the 
music  of  Der  Ring  des  Nibelungen, 

For  the  bitter  side  of  these  controversies  one  must 
turn  to  the  newspapers  and  the  pamphlets  of  the  time. 


66  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

The  lighter  side  appears  in  cartoons  and  caricatures, 
many  of  which  have  been  gathered  by  Kreowski  and 
Fuchs  in  their  Richard  Wagner  in  der  Karikatur.  It  is 
not  a  brilliant  lot,  but  it  shows  plainly  what  the  more 
unresponsive  of  his  contemporaries  attacked  in 
Wagner:  his  use  of  dissonance;  his  noisiness;  his 
musical  innovations;  his  claim  of  being  a  poet  and  a 
prophet  of  musical  and  theatrical  reform.  Wagner 
is  shown  mounted,  as  the  commander-in-chief  of 
the  German  army,  ready  to  put  the  French  to  flight 
with  his  music.  Or  in  an  orchestral  scene  dragons 
and  long  snakelike  wisps  of  notes  are  escaping  from 
the  instruments.  An  Austrian  cartoon  pictures 
Wagner  on  his  arrival  in  Heaven  listening  with  a 
pained  expression  to  the  harp-music  of  the  angels 
and  calling  for  cymbals  and  trumpets.  In  1869 
there  appeared  in  V Eclipse  a  cartoon  by  Gill,  which 
shows  a  huge  ear  within  whose  frame  stands  Wagner, 
a  puny  figure  with  a  large  head,  hammering  away  at 
a  long  pin  whose  point  is  set  against  the  ear  drum. 
Quite  as  good  is  one  by  Dore.  It  gives  a  scene  in 
the  theatre  after  a  Wagnerian  opera  has  blared  and 
blasted  and  blown  its  way  across  the  orchestra  to  the 
balcony  and  the  boxes,  which  are  strewn  with  forms 
prostrate  or  bent  this  way  and  that — Uke  corn-stalks 
after  a  hurricane.  To  the  other  group  belongs  an 
i860  sketch  by  Cham  in  which  the  advocate  of  a 
music  of  the  future  is  leading  an  orchestra  of  future 
musicians — chubby-faced  babies  struggling  with  im- 


WAGNER  67 

mense  horn  instruments.  An  1876  cartoon  represents 
Wagner  in  the  haughtiest  of  attitudes,  accepting  the 
homage  of  ^schylus  and  Shakespeare.  1876  was 
the  year  of  the  formal  opening  of  the  Festspielhaus 
at  Bayreuth,  and  Wagner,  then  in  his  sixty-fourth 
year,  with  much  fine  work  to  his  credit  and  with 
the  patronage  of  the  King  of  Bavaria  to  back  him, 
could  afford  to  leave  the  satire  of  the  cartoonist 
unnoticed,  and  to  treat  all  adverse  criticism  with  the 
self-assurance  of  a  man  who  has  worked  out  an 
artistic  ideal  and  is  watching  its  realization.  He 
could  enjoy  success  hard  won,  for  even  in  the  seventies 
difficulties  arose  which  would  have  wrecked  Wag- 
ner's project  of  an  ideal  theatre  for  the  perfect 
blend  of  music  and  poetry,  had  it  not  been  for  his 
enterprise  in  taking  hold,  giving  concerts,  issuing 
shares.  But  these  unpleasant  experiences  are  not 
to  be  compared  with  the  struggles  and  bitter  disap- 
pointments of  the  forties  and  fifties.  After  the  first 
failure  of  Tannhduser  at  Dresden  in  1845  Wagner 
wrote:  "  A  feehng  of  complete  isolation  took  posses- 
sion of  me.  It  was  not  my  vanity;  I  had  fooled 
myself  with  my  eyes  open,  and  now  I  was  quite 
stunned.  I  had  only  one  thought:  to  bring  the 
public  to  understand  and  to  share  my  views,  and  to 
accomplish  its  artistic  education.'' 

There  is  then  a  background  of  personal  experience, 
and  there  is  the  stress  and  strain  of  a  visionary  but 
strongly  espoused  ideal.    Without  them  Wagner's 


68  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

artistic  personality  becomes  unintelligible;  and  it  is 
they  that  explain  his  social  criticism,  his  advocacy 
of  an  art  of  the  future,  and  his  theory  of  the  music 
drama. 

As  a  social  critic  Wagner  is  not  a  mere  fault-finder. 
He  has  reason  to  complain  of  his  critics  and  his  pub- 
lic for,  to  mention  only  one  grievance,  he  had  been 
compelled  to  save  Tannkauser  from  becoming  a 
mere  frame  for  ballets  and  divertissements.  Again 
and  again  he  had  been  irritated  by  the  fickle  or 
dull-witted  theatre-goer.  But  his  social  criticism 
goes  deeper:  it  touches  the  culture  of  his  time, 
tests  it  and  finds  it  distinctly  unfavorable  to  gen- 
uinely great  art;  unfavorable  because  of  its  preten- 
tiousness and  exclusiveness;  its  crass  materialism; 
its  hide-bound  worship  of  the  conventional.  "Lux- 
ury and  exclusiveness,  by  breaking  down  race  con- 
sciousness, by  undermining  character  and  destroy- 
ing freedom  and  the  sense  of  human  dignity,  bring 
affectation,  disillusionment,  weariness,  indifference 
to  beauty — and  what  but  an  unideal  and  very 
feeble  art  could  thrive  in  soil  such  as  this?  The 
taint  of  the  academic  lies  on  Wagner's  contrast  of 
the  luxury  and  weak  slavishness  of  imperial  Rome 
with  the  poise,  the  freedom,  and  the  art  splendor  of 
Athens;  but  many  of  his  allusions  to  the  showy 
exterior  and  inner  bareness  of  the  culture  of  his  day 
and  its  shortsighted  and  commerciaKzed  aims  bear 


WAGNER  69 

the  stamp  of  knowledge  at  first  hand.  Worship  of 
custom  and  convention  he  considers  no  less  destruc- 
tive a  force;  it  is  one  of  the  worst  forms  of  tyranny 
and  results  in  an  unoriginal,  dead  or  mannered  art. 

Of  all  these  things  Wagner  gives  many  instances. 
Modern  architecture,  ruled  by  utility  instead  of 
beauty — and  a  shallow  utility  at  that — turns  the 
Exchange  into  a  temple;  it  is  mechanical  and  fond 
to  excess  of  ornament.  Modern  sculpture  is  simply 
decorative  of  rich  men's  houses,  and  even  at  its 
best  lacks  the  life  and  the  direct  spirit  of  Greek 
sculpture,  which  it  imitates.  Modern  painting  has 
had  to  turn  to  landscape  because  the  human  drama 
no  longer  ojffered  opportunities  in  beauty  and  sig- 
nificance— a  strange  thought  of  Wagner's.  Modern 
music  has  become  artificial  and  vulgarized ;  Beethoven 
has  been  displaced  by  Rossini,  he  of  the  catchy  airs 
and  mercenary  point  of  view,  and  by  Meyerbeer, 
the  blatant,  the  theatrical,  the  commonplace.  Why, 
asks  Wagner  in  his  characteristic  vein,  are  we  forced 
to  speak  well  only  of  the  dead? 

Such  is  Wagner's  social  criticism.  Like  Tolstoy's 
and  Nietzsche's,  it  is  much  more  truly  an  expression 
of  personal  needs  than  it  is  a  large  and  sound  in- 
terpretation of  cultural  tendencies.  Culture,  after 
all,  is  a  very  complex  affair,  and  we  have  grown 
rather  distrustful  of  marking  and  damning  an  age 
by  a  single  adjective  or  a  group  of  adjectives.  But 
this  much  can  be  said;  to   a  self-assertive  man  in 


70  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

need  of  elbow  room — and  such  was  Wagner — and  a 
picturesque  background,  and  to  a  man  who,  hke  Wag- 
ner or  Nietzsche,  had  a  dramatic,  not  to  say  theatri- 
cal idea  of  greatness,  the  third  quarter  of  the  last 
century  would  seem  the  dreariest  and  most  prosy 
age  in  all  history.  There  is  this  personal  note  in 
Wagner's  attacks,  but  that  is  a  matter  of  origin. 
Of  far  greater  interest  is  the  incentive;  the  ideal 
of  a  truer  culture  and  a  better  art,  which  is  caught 
at  the  rebound,  and  which  in  its  detail  parallels 
closely  Wagner's  social  criticisms. 

An  ideal  art  is  impossible  without  an  ideal  culture 
— this  thought  serves  to  interlock  the  three  demands 
Wagner  makes  on  culture  and  on  art.  Life  must 
be  free  and  natural;  it  must  be  rich,  strong,  and 
beautiful;  and  from  this  rich  soil  of  life  there  must 
spring  an  art  which  is  popular  in  the  sense  of  being 
deeply  rooted  in  the  racial  consciousness  of  man; 
which  is  individual  and  free;  which  is  the  complete 
and  harmonious  summing  up  of  man's  artistic 
nature.  These  are  the  keys  to  the  theory  of  an  art 
of  the  future,  and  of  the  music  drama  as  the  charac- 
teristic form  of  that  art. 

True  art  is  racial  art;  art  expressive  of  the  life  of 
the  people.  Whenever  one  class  arrogates  to  itself 
the  right  to  art,  it  gives  an  artificial  and  man- 
nered art.     Wagner  has  in  mind   the   troubadour 


WAGNER  71 

poetry  of  France,  and  Italian  opera  of  courtly  origin 
and  courtlier  caprice.  The  one  loses  itself  in  fan- 
tastic conceits;  the  other  changes  folk-song  and 
melody  to  the  pyrotechnics  of  the  aria.  True  art 
has  its  roots  deep  down  in  the  racial  and  national 
life  of  a  people;  uproot  it  and  it  withers.  It  is  in 
the  religious  and  social  consciousness  that  this 
VolkS'geist,  this  spirit  of  the  people,  shows  itself, 
and  there  it  works  with  the  unconsciousness  and 
sureness  of  an  elemental  force.  Mythology  is  a 
perfect  treasure-house  of  poetry.  Folk-song  and  folk- 
music  are  the  pulsings  of  a  rich  racial  life.  Wagner 
never  wearies  of  pointing  to  the  mass  of  legend, 
myth,  and  racial  life  which  marks  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  and  gives  freshness  and  force  to  what  other- 
wise would  have  been  a  mere  picture  of  a  courtly 
life;  he  shows  Greek  religion  to  have  been  the  source 
of  inspiration  for  Greek  tragedy.  Not  that  he  wishes 
art  to  be  popular  in  the  ordinary  sense;  few  men 
have  cared  less  for  the  approval  of  the  mob  than  he. 
But  why  blame  the  rabble  for  not  understanding 
a  work  of  art?  Blame  rather  the  culture  that  pro- 
duces the  rabble:  the  base,  ugliness-stricken  culture 
of  the  day  and  its  trivial  art.  With  a  reawakening 
of  the  Volks-geist  and  an  artistic  regeneration  in  view 
Wagner  turns  to  Norse  mythology  for  his  material 
and  introduces  into  opera  the  genuine  folk-song  j  ^  ^ 
and  its  rhythmic  animation.  But  this  ideal  of  his 
was  a  gradual  growth,  for  the  inspiration  of  much 


72  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

ol  his  earlier  work  was  indirect  and  artificial.  Die 
Feen  attaches  itself  to  Gozzi;  Das  Liebesverbot 
to  Shakespeare's  Measure  for  Measure;  Rienzi 
to  Bulwer-Lytton's  novel.  Here  as  well  as  in  Tann- 
hauser  and  Lohengrin  much  is  artificial  and  popular 
in  a  bad  sense,  for  processions  and  theatrical  tricks 
abound,  and  the  music  itself  according  to  Wagner's 
later  estimate  has  more  than  a  touch  of  Italian  and 
French  corruption.  There  is  no  artifice  in  Tristan 
und  Isolde;  the  action  there  is  almost  bare  in  its 
simplicity  and  directness;  picturesqueness  and  vari- 
ety of  incident  yield  to  intensity.  Der  Ring  des 
Nibelungen  owes  much  to  the  Edda.  It  is  a  drama 
of  gods  and  demi-gods,  and  of  a  vanishing  world 
order,  and  as  such  is  paralleled  by  tales  of  Kronos  and 
Zeus,  and  by  the  ^Eschylean  tragedy  with  its  rift  of 
fate,  its  dark  disclosure  of  an  older  and  cruder  type  of 
gods,  and  its  message  of  a  new  and  deeper  wisdom. 
It  is  not  only  in  plot  and  character  that  Wagner 
seeks  to  lay  bare  the  racial  root  of  consciousness; 
in  every  one  of  his  operas  and  music  dramas  he  draws 
on  folk-song  and  folk-music.  The  spinning  song  in 
Der  Fliegende  Hollander;  the  mermaid  song  in  Das 
Rheingold;  the  songs  of  the  sea  in  Tristan  und  Isolde; 
the  song  of  the  forge  in  Siegfried;  and  the  Valkyrie 
battle-cry  in  Die  Walkure — one  and  all,  are  as  far 
as  could  be  from  the  ornamental  and  artificial,  and 
from  the  musically  corrupt.  They  rouse  an  earlier, 
slumbering  consciousness,  and  fitful  echoes  of  the  lure 


WAGNER  73 

of  the  sea,  of  battle-lust,  of  the  joy  of  work,  of  intense 
living,  and  of  confused  wondering.  The  half-absence 
of  self-consciousness  in  Siegfried,  to  which  Wagner 
refers  in  a  letter  to  Roeckel,  and  the  lack  of  clear 
self-knowledge  on  the  part  of  Parsifal,  are  in  line 
with  Wagner's  belief  that  this  earlier  consciousness 
is  one  of  feeling,  and  that  it  must  be  recovered  by 
intuition.  In  this  sense  art  is  the  great  recoverer 
of  a  submerged  life. 

It  is  curious  that  artists  like  Wagner,  Rodin, 
Tolstoy,  and  Maeterlinck,  so  dissimilar  in  aims  and 
equipment,  should  all  in  this  one  respect  think  and 
feel  aUke.  For  Tolstoy  as  for  Wagner  art  cuts 
beneath  the  reflective  consciousness  and  liberates 
something  more  direct  and  vital — social  and  religious 
feelings;  and  yet  when  it  comes  to  interpreting  these 
feelings  the  whole  span  of  a  Weltanschauung  separates 
the  robust  optimism  and  one-syllable  Christianity 
of  Tolstoy  from  the  pessimism  and  mysticism  of  the 
composer  of  Gotterdammerung  and  Parsifal.  For 
Rodin  also  art  is  the  recoverer  of  an  earlier  inner  life, 
a  life  of  great  dynamic  force,  of  muscular  effort,  of 
lust,  of  passion,  of  self-torment,  of  the  sting  of  excite- 
ment, of  the  glory  of  change.  For  Maeterlinck  it  is 
not  the  recovery  of  unrest,  but  the  recovery  of  calm, 
that  art  gives.  The  artist  gets  back  of  words,  masks 
and  artifices,  and  uncovers  a  realm  of  expressive 
silence,  of  spiritual  beauty,  quiet  and  self-possessed. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  also  that  under  the  pressure  of 


74  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

this  view  of  art  Rodin  was  forced  to  violate  certain 
rules  of  academic  sculpture,  Wagner  was  led  to  aban- 
don the  traditional  form  of  the  opera  and  to  insist 
on  the  music  drama  as  the  intimate  fusion  of  poetry 
and  music,  and  Maeterlinck,  quite  as  eager  for  a 
stronger  and  larger  expressiveness,  set  about  con- 
structing the  drame  intime,  the  drama  of  volatile 
experiences,  of  pauses  and  silences,  of  premonitions 
and  glimpses  of  the  inner  life. 

True  art  must  he  individual  and  free.  This  is 
Wagner's  second  demand.  In  modern  life  custom 
stifles  the  growth  of  individuaUty;  the  natural  is 
voted  crude  or  immoral;  artifice  takes  the  place  of 
natural  strength.  The  artist  of  the  future  feels  this 
and  turns  to  the  old  myths  and  legends,  for  there  the 
racial  consciousness  is  still  creative.  Character  has 
heroic  grandeur  and  sharp  contours,  and  life  is  still 
strong  and  hot  to  the  taste. 

Nothing  brings  one  closer  to  Wagner  than  this 
emphasis  on  individuality  and  freedom.  The  forces 
in  play  are  many;  the  personal  motives  at  work, 
highly  complex.  A  hostile  or  stupidly  appreciative 
lot  of  critics,  an  ununderstanding  public,  domestic 
unhappiness,  and  dislike  for  the  sordid  business  of 
making  a  living  must  be  counted  in;  and  to  all  this 
must  be  added  the  pressure  of  a  creative  impulse, 
the  need  of  the  monumental  and  largely  proportioned, 
and  a  true  kinghness  mixed  with  not  a  little  alloy. 


WAGNER  75 

The  man's  letters  reveal  much  of  this.  Passage 
after  passage  strikes  the  note  of  unhappiness,  loneli- 
ness, rebellion,  contempt  until  in  a  letter  to  Frau 
Wille  in  1864  there  is  a  bitter  tirade  against  phil- 
istinism  and  its  "  ghastly  shrewdness  "  and  "  ridicu- 
lous bluntness  in  the  valuation  of  the  things  of  life.'' 
How  can  it  comprehend  the  artist,  the  "  deeper 
spirit "  ?  A  letter  written  to  Otto  Wesendonck  in 
1859  shows  clearly  a  restive  and  weary  mood,  but 
shows  quite  as  clearly  Wagner's  self-assurance  and 
the  imperative  impulse  to  create. 

"  Perhaps  silence  would  have  been  better.  Yet 
this  is  the  only  language  in  which  I  can  convey  to 
human  understanding  what  certainly  is  often  not 
understood  when  I  simply  express  my  longing  for 
the  end.  All  that  I  suffer,  I  bear  through  nothing 
but  the  power  of  the  wish  to  have  peace  and  security 
about  me  in  this  world  of  robbers,  to  be  able — for- 
getting all  my  misery — to  set  to  work  again!  Believe 
me,  I  no  longer  have  a  wish  save  this.  Of  late  I  have 
again  come  to  the  lively  conviction  that  I  can  re- 
nounce even  the  performance  of  Tristan,  and  every- 
thing, only  to  know  that  I  may  work  on  undisturbed! 
Now  I  am  bracing  myself,  to  get  air  again  for  my  last 
act  of  Siegfried:  breathe  I  but  that  once  more,  then 
nothing  else  matters  to  me.  For  this  I  see:  I  am 
entirely  what  I  am,  only  when  I  am  creating.  The 
actual  performance  of  my  works  belongs  to  a  more 
settled  time,  to  a  time  which  I  must  first  prepare 
for  by  my  sufferings! 

*^My   most   congenial   art-friends   have   nothing 


76  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

beyond  astonishment  for  my  new  works;  every  one 
who  stands  at  all  near  to  our  pubKc  art-life  feels  too 
feeble  for  hope.  There  I  meet  nothing  save  pity 
and  sadness!  And  they  really  are  right!  Nothing 
teaches  me  better,  how  terribly  I  have  overleapt  all 
around  me,  than  a  good,  sharp  look — down  from 
myself — on  those  who  stand  between  me  and  just  that 
world. 

"  So  let  me  work  myself  completely  out;  oh,  had 
I  nothing,  nothing  else  to  do  upon  this  earth!  Rest! 
Rest!  that  the  inner  torch  may  burn  soft  and  bright, 
which  flickers  so  wildly  under  the  breath  of  this  life 
of  want,  and — soon  must  be  extinct.  Let  me  but 
create  the  works  I  there  was  given,  in  peaceful, 
glorious  Switzerland,  there  with  my  gaze  upon  the 
lofty,  gold-wreathed  mountains:  they  are  wonder- 
works, and  nowhere  else  could  I  have  conceived 
them.  Let  me  finish  them:  then  am  I  done  with  and 
redeemed!  But  ask  nothing,  nothing  else  from  me, 
and  don't  rejoice  when  *  successes '  beckon  me: 
their  price  is  fearful." 

These  personal  matters  help  explain  what  would 
otherwise  be  puzzling:  Wagner's  theory  of  the  two 
forces  that  work  themselves  out  in  this  free,  natural 
life  and  in  all  true  art.  He  calls  them  Lebensbedilrf- 
niss  and  Liebesbediirfniss.  The  first  is  the  life- 
impulse  itself,  which  causes  a  plant  to  suck  nourish- 
ment from  the  soil;  the  animal  to  grow  at  the  expense 
of  its  environment;  and  man  to  assert  his  will  ruth- 
lessly by  using  and  absorbing  everything  that  is 
needful  to  his  own  full  growth.    There  is  a  hint  of 


WAGNER  77 

Schiller's  Sioftrieb  in  all  this,  and  a  foreshadowing 
of  Schopenhauer's  will  to  live,  Liebesbediirfniss  means 
yearning  for  love,  for  sympathy,  for  self-sacrifice. 
In  185 1  Wagner  interpreted  Lohengrin  as  the  type 
of  this  force.  What  draws  Lohengrin  to  earth  is  the 
need  of  being  loved,  of  being  understood,  of  finding 
himself  in  the  utter  faith  and  self-sacrifice  of  a  woman. 
Wagner  had  the  courage  to  see  in  this  situation  the 
universal  tragedy  of  modern  life:  the  yearning  of  the 
inspired  artist  for  the  human  heart  and  the  shatter- 
ing of  a  possible  happiness  because  of  lack  of  utter 
faith.  In  Siegfried  he  sees  the  embodiment  of  the 
life-impulse. 

"  I  had  in  the  concentrated  image  of  Siegfried 
reached  the  point  of  seeing  before  me  man  in  the. 
most  natural  and  most  joyous  fulness  of  his  sensu- 
ously animated  being.  No  historical  dress  hampered 
him;  no  relation  from  without  in  any  way  blocked 
the  movement  of  his  being.  This  movement,  com- 
ing from  the  innermost  source  of  his  joy  of  life,  is 
such  that  with  error  and  confusion,  due  to  the  wildest 
play  of  passion,  accumulating  to  his  destruction,  the 
hero  never  for  a  moment  even  with  death  threatening 
finds  the  flow  of  this  inner  source  checked  and 
never  for  a  moment  recognizes  any  other  authority 
over  himself  than  just  the  necessary  outflowing  of 
this  restless,  seething  well  of  life." 

This  is  the  glorious  "  yea-saying  to  life  "  that  caught 
Nietzsche's  heart;  but  its  relation  to  Wagner's  inner 
development  as  an  Artist  and  Thinker  is  far  from 


78  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

simple.  It  is  clear  that  in  Siegfried^s  character 
an  idealistic  turn  is  given  to  the  life-impulse.  The 
world  is  still  a  mere  setting,  but  a  setting,  not  for  the 
devouring  rage  of  a  beast  of  prey,  but  for  the  vigor- 
ous self-assertion  of  a  richly  gifted  nature,  an  un- 
daunted will  and  a  clear  intelligence.  The  first 
conception  of  young  Siegfried  reflects  a  mood  of 
optimism,  and  was,  according  to  Wagner's  own  testi- 
mony, meant  for  a  picture  of  the  heroic  soul  in  its 
victorious  rush  and  happiness. 

As  such  it  is  a  reaction  from  the  religious  asceti- 
cism and  pessimism  of  Tannhauser  and  Lohengrin. 
There  Christian  motifs  such  as  faith,  salvation 
through  renunciation  of  carnal  desire,  and  other- 
worldliness  are  easily  traced.  The  jump,  in  1848, 
from  this  nay-saying  to  Siegfried's  pagan  yea-say- 
ing is  so  startling  that  we  may  not  be  willing  to 
accept  Wagner's  explanation,  offered  in  1851,  that 
Tannhauser  is  an  arraignment  not  of  the  sensuous 
joy  of  life,  but  of  present  cultural  conditions,  which 
make  all  but  a  distorted  and  perverted  joy  of  life 
impossible.  Still  we  can  trace  definitely,  side  by 
side  with  the  gospel  of  asceticism,  the  demand  for 
a  certain  robustness  and  sensuous  massiveness  of 
life;  a  demand  voiced  by  Siegfried  and  Lohengrin 
alike — two  men  unlike  except  in  strong  individuality 
and  dignity.  This  notion  of  dignity  gives  the  clue 
to  Wagner's  short,  vitriolic  essay,  Art  and  Revolu- 
tion, written  in  1849,  which  is  a  bitter  attack  on 


WAGNER  79 

Christianity  and  its  doctrines  of  humility  and  other- 
worldliness.  They  are  held  responsible  alike  for  the 
weak  and  slave-like  culture  of  the  masses  and  for  the 
hypocrisy  and  aggressive  greed  of  all  exploiters  of 
the  masses;  they  are  held  to  take  away  from  life 
strength,  dignity,  beauty  and  freedom:  all  the 
essentials,  in  fact,  of  a  liberal  culture  and  an  art  of 
distinction. 

Back  of  this  attack  is  an  ideal,  that  of  a  re-shaping 
of  culture,  of  a  righting  of  man's  wrongs.  This  may 
or  may  not  mean  a  moral  and  political  revolution, 
but  it  means  at  least  that  human  life  must  be  allowed 
to  develop  freely  to  its  full  stature  and  full  happi- 
ness. Renunciation  dwarfs  life;  convention  stifles 
it;  weakness  and  neglect  of  its  full  pith  despoils  man 
of  his  happiness.  There  is  a  curious  doubleness  in 
this  ideal:  There  are  two  demands,  one  of  which 
concerns  social  happiness,  the  other  a  social  regen- 
eration in  terms  of  nobility,  strength,  and  dignity. 
For  the  young  revolutionary  on  the  eve  of  1848 
the  two  seemed  one,  but  they  were  soon  driven  far 
apart  in  his  thought.  Success  and  other  happiness 
values  do  not  measure  the  worth  of  a  strong  and 
dignified  self-assertion  which  is  victorious  even  in 
defeat.  In  this  sense  Wagner's  own  devotion  to 
an  artistic  ideal,  in  spite  of  discouragement,  is  an 
expression  of  an  idealized  type  of  the  life-impulse. 
He  had  to  create,  had  often  to  work  feverishly  at 
the  cost  of  exquisite  pain,  but  pleasure  of  creating, 


80  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

intense  as  it  was  with  him,  could  hardly  account 
for  the  drive  and  volume  of  his  artistic  self-expres- 
sion. If  success  and  the  soHd  achievements  of  hap- 
piness measure  a  man,  Siegfried  is  defeated.  But 
the  measure  is  false,  for  out  of  the  wreckage  of  his 
life  there  rises  a  strong  and  triumphant  personality; 
an  individual  who  is  ever  himself;  who  is  nature, 
instinct,  joy  of  Hfe;  who  opposes  nature  to  human 
law  and  convention. 

Wagner  in  1864  says  of  his  Ring  der  Nibelungen: 
"  With  this  conception  I  had  unconsciously  gained 
the  truth  concerning  things  human.  Here  every- 
thing is  tragic  through  and  through,  and  the  will  that 
meant  to  fashion  a  world  in  harmony  with  its  wish 
could  in  the  end  gain  nothing  more  satisfying  than  to 
break  itself  in  a  downfall  nobly  borne."  Originally 
the  dramatic  idea  of  the  trilogy  was  quite  another  one, 
turning  on  such  conventional  ideas  as  the  destructive- 
ness  of  gold,  the  death-wages  of  hypocrisy  and  broken 
faith,  the  shattering  of  a  morally  inferior  world  by 
a  better  one.  All  this  stood  out  baldly  in  the  clos- 
ing words  of  Gdtterddmmerung.  These  words  Wagner 
struck  out;  they  were  replaced  by  such  as  seem  of 
the  very  tincture  of  Schopenhauer's  pessimism 
and  of  its  doctrine  of  a  world  of  illusion  and  rest- 
less desire  to  be  negated  in  a  spirit  of  Entsagung, 
resignation.  Brlinnhilde  passes  from  the  scene, 
wunsch-  und  wahnlos.  In  a  letter  to  Roeckel,  Wag- 
ner explains  that  as  a  poet  and  a  composer  he  had 


WAGNER  81 

intuitively  anticipated  Schopenhauer's  theories,  that 
Der  Fliegende  Hollander,  Lohengrin  and  Tannhauser 
were  tragedies  of  Entsagung,  and  that  in  not  seeing 
this  he  had  simply  misread  his  artistic  intentions. 
A  statement  like  this  must  be  taken  cautiously; 
it  is  impossible  to  slur  the  change  from  an  earlier 
revolutionary  optimism  to  pessimism;  impossible  also 
not  to  connect  this  change  with  the  conscious,  strong 
influence  of  Schopenhauer.  In  1854  Wagner  became 
acquainted  with  Schopenhauer's  philosophy;  from 
the  very  first  he  admired  it  intensely,  and  it  has  left 
its  mark  on  all  his  later  work.  I  do  not  count  my- 
self among  those  who  see  in  Wagner's  pessimism  a 
natural  tendency,  forced  into  the  open  by  this  con- 
tact with  Schopenhauer.  While  much  depends, 
of  course,  on  what  is  meant  by  pessimism,  there  is 
in  Wagner  an  assertive  note  of  robust  and  confident 
power,  of  strife,  of  feverish  creativeness,  which  seems 
the  very  opposite  of  pessimism.  Fits  of  depression 
there  were  in  his  life:  moments  when  he  felt  that  he 
was  waging  a  losing  fight  against  stupidity  and  mahce; 
but  there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between 
this  idea  of  a  will  hampered  and  blocked  in  its  pur- 
poses and  the  idea  of  the  illogical,  suicidal  nature 
of  the  will.  Never  did  Wagner  look  upon  himself 
as  the  dupe  of  an  irrational  cosmic  force  driving 
him  headlong;  never  did  he  doubt  himself  or  his 
artistic  ideals;  firm  self-assurance  marks  his  letters, 
his   autobiography,  and  his  essays.     Self-assurance 


82  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Schopenhauer  also  had  in  abundance;  and  he  de- 
spatched academic  philosophy  as  quickly  as  Wagner 
did  Italian  opera.  But  Schopenhauer  lacked  utterly 
the  artistic  need  and  joy  of  creation  from  which 
Wagner's  self-assurance  sprang.  To  the  drive  and 
push  of  this  Lebensbediirfniss  Wagner  gives  himself 
utterly. 

This  leads  directly  back  to  Wagner's  double 
interpretation  of  the  power  to  live,  of  will.  On 
the  one  hand  he  emphasizes  its  strength  and  its  rest- 
less activity;  on  the  other  its  grandeur  and  nobility; 
dwelling,  however,  on  the  latter  much  more  strongly 
both  as  a  man  and  as  an  artist.  His  is  an  idealizing 
reading  of  the  will,  for  what  interests  him  is  not  the 
shattering  of  the  individual  so  much  as  greatness 
of  soul  in  the  presence  of  disaster,  calm  strength  or 
an  ecstatic  self-drowning  of  the  will.  That  is  the 
way  his  artistic  genius  reacts  to  the  philosophy  of 
Schopenhauer.  Few  problems  are  more  interest- 
ing than  this  more  or  less  unconscious  reshaping  of  a 
philosopher's  world-view  by  an  artist  in  response  to 
the  demands  of  an  imperious  temperament.  Even 
where  Wagner  seems  closest  to  Schopenhauer,  in 
Tristan  und  Isolde  or  in  Parsifal,  he  is  still  distant 
by  just  that  much.  A  Tristan  und  Isolde  by  Schopen- 
hauer! what  would  it  have  been?  One  may  well 
imagine  it.  His  cynical  remarks  on  women  are 
familiar  enough:  so  is  his  unflattering  interpreta- 
tion of  love.    Nature  intent  on  the  race  rather  than 


WAGNER 

the  individual  works  her  will  by  that  loveliest  and 
deadliest  of  baits:  woman.  Schopenhauer  would 
have  shown  us  a  Tristan  and  an  Isolde  stung  by 
unquenchable  desire,  driven  about  blindly  by  the 
mad  fury  of  love — only  to  be  swept  away,  like  all 
nature's  fools,  with  the  will  shaken  out  of  them. 
Resignation  to  him  is  the  essential  thing  in  tragedy; 
the  tragic  hero  takes  leave  of  us  with  "  the  will  to 
live  quite  dead  "  in  him.  It  might  be  going  too  far 
to  accuse  Schopenhauer  of  glorifying  limpness;  he 
has  his  ideal  of  salvation  through  art  and  through  a 
religion  of  S3anpathy,  but  on  the  whole  his  emphasis 
is  dangerously  the  other  way.  The  world  is  a  mad- 
house and  a  slaughter-house;  in  it  are  staged  the 
insane  antics  of  will.  This  cosmic  indictment  quite 
overshadows  the  idea  of  salvation  and  gives  his 
philosophy  a  turn  toward  the  negative. 

But  what  about  Wagner!  The  contrast  between 
night  and  day  which  recurs  again  and  again  in 
Tristan  und  Isolde  seems  a  genuine  bit  of  Schopen- 
hauer. Night  is  apostrophized  as  the  eternal;  the 
all-soothing;  destroyer  of  the  false,  garish  lights  of 
day  and  of  the  illusions  of  life — glory,  gain,  individu- 
ality.   And  these  words 

— dann 
bin  ich  die  Welt, 
liebe-heiligstes  Leben, 
wonne-hehrstes  Weben 
nie-wieder-Erwachens 


84  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

wahnlos 
hold  bewusster  Wunsch, 

seem  an  echo  of  the  Nirvana,  and  its  destruction  of 
will  and  individuality.  But  the  whole  drama  reflects 
an  interpretation  and  a  play  of  motives  quite  Wagner's 
own  and  in  many  ways  quite  remote  from  Schopen- 
hauer's point  of  view.  Schopenhauer  had  inter- 
preted sexual  love  as  one  of  the  strongest  expressions 
of  will,  one  of  the  master  forces  that  keep  the  earth 
spinning  about  in  restless  torment;  and  had  held 
salvation  to  be  possible  only  by  its  destruction.  To 
all  this  Wagner  objected  from  the  very  first;  and 
that  he  should  have  objected  to  this  ascetic  ideal  is 
not  at  all  surprising,  for  as  a  man  and  an  artist  he 
was  erotic.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  in  his  essays 
his  prose  in  its  yeasty  ferment  again  and  again  turns 
into  erotic  imagery.  A  robust  sexuality  marks  his 
poetic  creations;  of  this  no  drama  of  his  has  more 
than  Tristan  und  Isolde,  which  is  Wagner's  apotheosis 
of  sexual  love.  The  whole  spirit  of  the  play — music 
as  well  as  words — is  passionate  ecstasy  and  passionate 
yearning.  There  are  changes  in  this  sea  of  feeling: 
it  is  surging  or  choppy  or  smooth  with  the  smoothness 
of  long,  undulating  swells.  The  passion  of  love, 
which  to  Schopenhauer  was  the  chief  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  the  killing  off  of  will  and  individuality,  is  to 
Wagner  the  very  force  that  saves  us  from  the  slavery 
to  will  and  individuality;  the  very  force  that  makes 
both  Tristan  and  Isolde  long  for  the  drowning  of  the 


WAGNER  85 

Self  in  the  Other.  Death,  night,  Nirvana  are  merely 
the  symbol  of  this  merger  of  consciousness.  This 
is  a  psychological  interpretation  of  love,  not  a  biolog- 
ical one,  like  Schopenhauer's;  and,  psychologically, 
passionate  love  is  marked  by  unconsciousness  of 
self,  by  the  desire  for  complete  self-absorption  in  the 
Other,  by  its  consuming  and  fusing  power. 

There  is  much  more  of  Wagner  than  of  Schopen- 
hauer in  Tristan  und  Isolde;  and  it  may  serve  as  a 
striking  illustration  of  the  degree  to  which  both 
Wagner's  art  and  his  theories  were  influenced  by 
peculiarities  of  artistic  genius  and  personality. 
The  same  subjective  influences  shape  his  ideal  of 
an  art  of  the  future  and  the  demands  he  makes  on 
that  art. 

Genuine  art,  then,  must  be  natural,  racially 
grounded,  individual,  and  free.  But  Wagner's  third 
demands  tops  these  in  importance.  True  art  must 
be  a  compact  and  complete  expression  of  the  artistic 
consciousness. 

"  The  artistic  man  can  find  complete  satisfaction 
only  in  the  union  of  all  art  forms  in  a  common  work 
of  art;  he  is  in  every  isolation  of  his  artistic  powers 
not  free,  not  completely  what  he  might  be.  In  this 
conunon  work  of  art  he  is  free  and  what  he  might  be. 
The  true  aim  of  art  is  the  all-inclusive.  Every  one 
who  is  truly  art-inspired  develops  his  peculiar  en- 
dowment to  its  highest  point,  not  in  order  to  glorify 


86  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

this  special  endowment,  but  to  glorify  man  through 
art  as  such."  Of  such  artistic  wholeness  Wagner 
had  before  him  the  example  of  Goethe;  and  men  like 
Herder  and  Schiller  had  sketched  in  the  picture  of  a 
culture  from  which  a  wholehearted  and  complete  art 
was  to  spring.  Suffering  sharply  from  this  back- 
ground of  idealism  at  its  best,  romanticism  with 
its  onesidedness,  opportunism,  political  and  cultural 
littleness,  looseness,  and  dulness  would  be  caught  in 
Wagner's  criticism. 

Wagner  takes  stock  of  his  time  and  finds  the  con- 
ditions distinctly  unfavorable.  Art,  originally  one, 
expressing  itself  in  three  interpenetrating  art  forms, 
music,  poetry,  and  the  dance,  has  been  torn  asunder, 
piecemeal,  by  modern  life.  Each  and  every  art 
claims  independence  and  gains  helplessness.  The 
drama  has  lost  by  the  abolition  of  the  Greek  chorus. 
Music  cut  adrift  from  words  and  vocal  expression 
has  too  often  become  a  filmy,  nebulous  thing.  What- 
ever attempts  have  been  made  to  recombine  the 
several  arts  have  proved  failures.  What  else  was 
to  be  expected  from  putting  them  all  in  the  same 
pot  and  giving  them  a  good  shaking?  The  very 
worst  of  such  attempts  is  modern  opera  on  Italian 
and  French  lines.  There  character  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  words,  and  the  words  nothing  with  the 
music.  The  ballet  is  a  divertissement  interpolated 
anywhere  and  artificial  to  the  core.  Processions  are 
meant  to  catch  the  eye;    scenery,  sentimentality  or 


WAGNER  87 

barbaric  splendor,  music  that  is  sweetish,  catchy, 
full  of  artifice:  these  are  meant  to  complete  the 
fascination.  The  aria  becomes  the  trick-box  of 
the  sleight-of-hand  singer.  Libretto  and  score  are 
slammed  together.  The  composer  could  not  breathe 
life  into  the  mannikins  of  the  librettist;  he  had  to 
stretch  words  till  they  would  stretch  no  farther,  and 
then  had  to  cut  loose  from  his  text  altogether  and 
seek  compensation  in  the  curlycues  of  the  aria  and 
in  daubings  of  tone  color  or  in  historical  haberdashery 
and  in  the  full  choric  accompaniment  to  the  aria. 
The  sounding  unison  of  the  chorus,  as  it  is  to  be 
found  in  Meyerbeer,  is  to  Wagner  simply  the  decora- 
tive stage  ensemble  turned  into  many-voiced  noise. 
The  hunt  for  exotic  subjects,  folk-melodies  and 
dances  is  curiosity  turned  wild.  There  is  in  these 
Oriental  operas  no  understanding  of  Oriental  life. 
It  is  all  a  matter  of  curio-hunting  and  padding. 
These  devices  of  the  librettist  are  aimed  at  the 
public;  the  composer  in  turn  does  the  best  he  can 
with  a  monotonous  and  often  ridiculous  libretto  and 
seeks  to  get  a  little  variety  and  characterization  on 
the  side.  As  a  result  music  and  text  fall  apart. 
The  music  either  embroiders  the  text  with  pattern 
after  pattern  or  makes  away  with  it  altogether. 
Wagner  cites  an  instance  of  such  embroidery.  It  is 
one  of  the  artifices  of  opera  to  take  a  verse,  have  it 
sung  with  the  stress  on  one  word,  then  have  it  sung 
with  the  stress  on  another  until  it  all  becomes  a 


88  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

silly,  meaningless  repetition.  It  is  another  artifice 
to  stretch  words  and  music  to  conceal  an  inner 
poverty  of  score  and  libretto. 

In  all  these  criticisms  there  appears  a  sincere 
interest  in  a  very  important  aesthetic  principle,  that 
of  organic  structure.  It  would  be  instructive  to 
test  the  more  recent  French  and  Itahan  opera  from 
this  point  of  view.  Operas  like  Cavalleria  Rusticana 
and  Le  Jongleur  de  Notre  Dame  are  close-knit  in 
structure  and  appeal.  They  show  an  advance  in 
musical  characterization  quite  as  clearly  as  does 
the  radically  diflFerent  music  of  Strauss.  Debussy 
has  developed  an  atmospheric  and  emotionally 
fluid  music  which  contrasts  strongly  with  the  sharply 
jointed  and  melody-spiced  music  of  classical  opera. 
In  many  recent  operas,  however,  the  curse  of  the 
exotic  is  still  as  strong  as  it  was  in  The  Magic  Flute. 
There  is  something  childish  about  Puccini's  super- 
ficial exploitation  of  the  West  and  of  Japan  in  The 
Girl  of  the  Golden  West  and  Madame  Butterfly.  The 
music  is  compelling  in  spots,  but  as  a  whole  such 
operas  contrast  unfavorably  with  the  naturalness 
and  basic  strength  of  the  Wagnerian  music 
drama. 

Wagner's  theory  of  the  music  drama  as  the  perfect 
expression  of  an  art  of  the  future  shapes  itself  rapidly 
on  the  basis  of  these  two  constructive  demands: 
of  organic  unity;  of  completeness  and  breadth  of 
artistic  inspiration. 


WAGNER  89 

"  The  highest  common  work  of  art  is  the  drama; 
it  can  exist  in  its  fulness  only  when  there  is  contained 
in  it  each  single  art  in  its  fulness. 

"  The  true  drama  is  possible  only  as  emerging 
from  the  common  expressive  impulse  of  all  the  arts 
directed  toward  a  common  publicity.  Each  single 
art  form  can  unfold  itself  to  a  complete  understand- 
ing only  by  combining  with  the  others  in  the  drama, 
for  the  aim  of  each  single  art  form  can  be  gained 
completely  only  by  means  of  the  sympathetic  and 
enlightening  cooperation  of  them  all  in  the  drama/' 

In  the  music  drama  poetry,  music  and  the  dance 
will  all  have  their  place.  Painting  appears  as 
scene-painting;  architecture  is  assigned  the  task 
of  building  an  ideal  theatre,  which  is  to  be  the  per- 
fect expression  of  the  beauty  and  dignity  of  art. 
Wagner  continues: 

"  In  the  all  inclusive  work  of  art  of  the  future  not 
a  single,  richly  developed  capacity  of  the  several 
arts  remains  unused.  In  it  they  all  come  to  their 
own.  The  tonal  art  developed  so  characteristically 
and  variously  in  instrumental  music  can  be  pushed 
to  its  utmost  bent.  It  in  turn  will  stimulate  the  art 
of  dramatic  dancing  to  new  inventions  and  distend 
to  unforeseen  fulness  the  spirit  of  poetry.  In  its 
isolation  music  has  fashioned  for  itself  an  organ 
capable  of  unHmited  expression:  the  orchestra. 
The  tonal  language  of  Beethoven,  brought  into  the 
drama  by  the  orchestra,  is  quite  a  new  thing  in  it. 
Architecture  and  scenic  landscape  painting  place  the 
dramatic  artist  and  his  presentation  in  a  physical 


90  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

setting,  and  furnish  a  rich,  self-renewing,  and  signifi- 
cant background.  But  the  orchestra,  that  Uving 
body  of  infinitely  manifold  harmony,  furnishes  to 
the  individual  artist  a  substratum  of  the  natural 
in  its  artistic  and  human  nature.  The  orchestra 
is,  so|to  speak,  the  ground  of  infinite,  all  embracing 
feehng,  from  which  the  individual  feeling  of  the  singer 
can  grow  to  its  full  stature;  it  dissolves  the  rigid, 
immovable  substance  of  the  actual  scene  into  a 
liquid,  soft,  yielding,  impressionable,  ethereal  some- 
thing whose  limitless  ground  is  feeling  itself.'' 

"  Thus  joining  in  a  rhythmic  procession,  the  allied 
arts  show  themselves,  now  singly,  now  in  pairs,  as 
the  dramatic  action  requires  it.  At  one  time  the 
plastic  art  of  the  mime  hearkens  to  the  passionless 
reflection  of  thought;  at  another,  the  impulse  of 
determined  thought  pours  itself  into  the  immediate 
expressiveness  of  gesture;  at  another,  music  alone 
can  express  the  flow  of  feeling  or  the  seizure  by 
emotion;  then  again  all  three  of  the  arts,  linked 
together,  will  visualize  and  actualize  the  idea  of  the 
drama." 

Back  of  passages  like  these  there  is  a  very  definite 
theory  of  the  function  of  poetry  and  music  and 
the  relation  between  poet  and  composer.  Accord- 
ing to  Wagner,  music  and  poetry  alike  address  them- 
selves to  feeling.  The  poet  does  it  by  means  of 
language.  But  language  is  the  joint  product  of 
intellect  and  feeling;  by  means  of  it  man  has  been 
able  to  fix  his  ideas  and  to  pass  his  experiences  on 
to  his  fellows.  In  becoming  articulate  it  has  become 
crystallized,  blocked  out  into  so  many  sharply  sun- 


WAGNER  91 

dered  ideas;  in  its  further  development  it  has  become 
more  abstract,  more  nearly  the  servant  of  the  in- 
tellect; and  it  has  become  brittle  and  colorless.  The 
poet  must  restore  its  early  fluidity  and  emotional 
power;  he  must  break  up  these  intellectual  blocks 
and  again  make  of  language  an  emotional  continuum 
full  of  contrasts  melting  into  one  another.  This 
is  not  an  easy  thing  for  the  poet  to  do,  with  the 
limited  resources  at  his  disposal.  Wagner  suggests 
various  devices,  such  as  choice  of  concrete,  full- 
blooded  words;  rhyme;  rhythmic  accentuation; 
dispensing  with  connectives;  alliteration.  He  him- 
self makes  use  of  the  old  German  Stabreiniy  and 
its  alliterative  pairing  of  words.  In  the  phrase 
Wohl  und  Weh,  weal  and  woe, — the  illustration  is 
Wagner's, — the  alliteration  combines  to  the  unity 
almost  of  a  compound  two  words  separated  by 
the  whole  span  of  the  feehng  horizon.  Every  one 
of  Wagner's  music  dramas  yields  many  examples 
of  all  of  these  devices,  but  the  richest  of  all  is  Tristan 
und  Isolde,  There  you  have  the  poetry  of  passion, 
of  pure  feeling;  language  has  been  stripped  bare  of 
its  intellectual  elements,  of  connectives  and  thought 
structure;  the  words  chosen  are  so  many  thrills 
and  beats  of  passion;  so  many  rapid  strokes  leading 
to  a  shattering  crescendo  or  to  ecstatic  reverbera- 
tions of  feehng.  Of  this  three  examples: 
The  first  is  from  the  second  act: 


92  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Tristan 
Isolde!  Geliebte! 

Isolde 
Tristan!  Geliebter! 

Beide 
Bist  du  mein? 
Hab'  ich  dich  wieder? 
Darf  ich  dich  fassen? 
Kann  ich  mir  trauen? 
Endlich!  Endlich! 
An  meiner  Brust! 
Fiihl  ich  dich  wirklich? 
Bist  du  es  selbst? 
Dies  deine  Augen? 
Dies  dein  Mund? 
Hier  deine  Hand? 
Hier  dein  Herz? 
Bin  ich's?    Bist  du's? 
Halt  ich  dich  f est? 
1st  es  kein  Trug? 
1st  es  kein  Traum? 
O  Wonne  der  Seelel 
O  siisse,  hehrste, 
kiihnste,  schonste, 
seligste  Lust! 
Ohne  Gleiche! 
Ueberreiche! 
Ueberselig! 
Ewig!    Ewig! 


WAGNER 

Ungeahnte, 
nie  gekannte, 
iiberschwanglich 
hoch  erhab'ne! 
Freude- Jauchzen ! 
Lust-Entziicken ! 
Himmel-hochstes 
Welt-En  triicken ! 
Mein  Tristan! 
Mein  Isolde! 
Tristan! 
Isolde! 

Mein  und  dein! 
Immer  ein! 
Ewig,  ewig  ein! 

The  second  is  from  the  same  act: 


Nun  banne  das  Verlangen, 

holder  Tod, 

sehnend  verlangter 

Liebes-Tod! 

In  deinen  Armen, 

dir  geweiht, 

ur-heilig  Erwarmen, 

von  Erwachens  Not  befreit. 

Wie  es  fassen? 

Wie  sie  lassen, 

diese  Wonne, 

fern  der  Sonne, 


94  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

fern  der  Tage 

Trennungs-Klage? 

Ohne  Wahnen 

sanftes  Sehnen, 

ohne  Bangen 

siiss  Verlangen; 

ohne  Wehen 

hehr  Vergehen, 

ohne  Schmachten 

hold  Umnachten; 

ohne  Scheiden, 

ohne      eiden, 

traut  allein, 

ewig  heim, 

in  ungemess'nen  Raumen 

liberseFges  Traumen. 

Du  Isolde, 

Tristan  ich, 

nicht  mehr  Tristan, 

nicht  Isolde; 

ohne  Nennen, 

ohne  Trennen, 

neu  Erkennen, 

neu  Entbrennen; 

endlos  ewig 

ein-bewusst: 

heiss  ergluhter  Brust 

hochste  Liebes-Lust! 

The  third  are  Isolde's  last  words: 


WAGNER  95 


Hore  ich  nur 
diese  Weise, 
die  so  wunder- 
voU  und  leise, 
Wonne  klagend 
alles  sagend, 
mild  versohnend 
aus  ihm  tonend, 
auf  sich  schwingt, 
in  mich  dringt, 
hold  erhallend 
um  mich  klingt? 
Heller  schallend, 
mich  umwallend, 
sind  es  Wellen 
sanfter  Liifte? 
Sind  es  Wogen 
wonniger  Diifte? 
Wie  sie  schwellen, 
mich  umrauschen, 
soil  ich  atmen, 
soil  ich  lauschen? 
Soil  ich  schliirfen, 
untertauchen, 
siiss  in  Diif  ten 
mich  verhauchen? 
In  des  Wonnemeeres 
wogendem  Schwall, 


96  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

in  der  Duft-Wellen 
tonendem  Schall, 
in  des  Welt-Atems 
wehendem  All — 
ertrinken — 
versinken — 
unbewusst — 
hochste  Lust! 

In  passages  like  these  Wagner  has  made  the  most 
of  the  emotional  resources  of  the  poet.  But  he  is 
well  aware  that  they  are  hmited,  that  the  poet  can- 
not by  the  sheer  force  of  his  isolated  art  express  the 
dramatic  idea  completely.  Poetry  must  enlist  the 
services  of  music,  vocal  and  orchestral.  Pure  tone 
and  melodic  theme  give  the  tone-color  of  language; 
more  than  that,  by  passing  from  pole  to  pole  of  feeling 
— stressing,  grading,  reconciKng — they  give  a  lan- 
guage that  is  liquidescent  as  well  as  irridescent. 
Harmonics  is  only  a  further  step  in  this  subtle  mixing 
and  blending  of  feeling.  But  what  of  orchestral 
music  and  its  place  in  the  music  drama?  Wagner 
does  not  mean  it  to  be  a  mere  accompaniment  to  the 
score,  nor  an  independent  music  without  words; 
every  bar  of  it  must  be  organically  related  to  the 
dramatic  idea.  To  Wagner  the  orchestra,  like  the 
chorus  in  a  Greek  tragedy,  is  the  interpreter  of  the 
action  and  its  underlying  motives.  It  is  memory, 
and  it  is  premonition  (Ahndung) — a  swift  messenger 


WAGNER  97 

to  gather  in  the  past  and  set  it  down  in  the  present 
or  the  forerunner  of  dark  forebodings,  shapeless 
fears  or  half -formed  hopes.* 

*The  following  passage  illustrates  Wagner^s  theory  of  the  emo- 
tional fluidity  of  music  and  of  the  part  the  orchestra  is  to  play: 

"  While  the  composer  is  still  dependent  on  the  original  form  of  the 
dance  and  never  dares  to  seek  expressiveness  beyond  its  boundaries, 
the  poet  calls  to  him:  *  Leap  boldly  into  the  full  waves  of  the  sea  of 
music;  if  you  do  it  hand  in  hand  with  me  you  will  never  lose  touch 
with  what  every  one  understands  best.  I  place  you  firmly  on  the 
ground  of  dramatic  action,  and  this  action,  at  the  time  of  its  scenic 
representation,  is  of  all  poems  the  most  easily  understood.  Spread 
your  melody  boldly  so  that  it  pours  itself  over  your  work  like  an 
incessant  stream;  express  in  it  what  I  am  silent  about,  because  only 
you  can  say  it;  and  I,  though  silent,  shall  express  all  because  I  am 
your  guide.' 

"  In  truth  the  greatness  of  a  poet  may  be  measured  by  his  express- 
ive silence  about  the  inexpressible.  It  is  the  composer  who  seizes 
upon  this  silence  and  expresses  it  in  sound.  The  form  of  this  sound- 
ing silence  is  infinite  melody. 

1'  **  Naturally  the  symphonic  poet  cannot  shape  this  melody  with- 
out his  peculiar  instrument:  the  orchestra.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  he  must  not  like  the  Italian  composer  use  the  orchestra  simply 
as  a  huge  guitar  for  the  accompaniment  of  the  aria. 

"  The  orchestra  will  in  the  proposed  drama  occupy  about  the 
place  the  Chorus  occupied  in  the  dramatic  action  of  the  Greeks. 
The  chorus  there  was  always  present,  watching  the  motives  and 
springs  of  the  developing  action,  seeking  to  fathom  these  motives 
and  to  arrive  at  some  judgment.  There  is  one  difference,  however. 
The  part  of  the  chorus  was  a  reflective  one;  it  stood  aloof  from  the 
action  and  its  motives.  Not  so  the  orchestra  of  the  modern  sym- 
phonic poet.  So  intimately  does  it  share  in  the  motives  of  the  action 
that  it  not  only  as  a  system  of  harmonics  makes  a  definite  expression 
of  melody  possible,  but  keeps  melody  itself  in  the  necessary  state  of 
continued  fluidity,  and  thus  reveals  the  motives  of  feeling  with  a 
convincing  impressiveness,'' 


Ii 


98  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

In  this  principle  of  musical  continuity  lies  the 
secret  of  Wagner's  use  of  Leitmotif,  In  its  crudest 
form  Leitmotif  is  simply  a  musical  tag;  it  is  a  partly 
imitative  and  partly  symbolical  method  of  ushering 
in  and  labelling  a  character  or  an  action.  As  such  it 
marks  better  than  anything  else  could  the  antiquated 
technique  of  the  opera.  Only  the  novel  at  its  worst 
would  stoop  to  so  mechanical  and  stereotyped  a 
device  as  having  the  hero  invariably  flick  the  ashes 
ofl  a  cigarette,  the  villain  always  talking  the  same 
deep-dyed  villainy,  the  characters  labelled  by  set 
phrases  and  recurrent  peculiarities  of  behavior  and 
bearing.  It  is  not  surprising  to  find  Wagner  im- 
patient of  the  endless  talk  of  Leitmotif  in  his  music 
dramas;  he  is  merely  setting  himself  against  stereo- 
typed characterization.  With  him  Leitmotif  is  a 
much  less  artificial  and  mechanical  thing.  He  is 
not  above  using  it  occasionally  as  a  tag  or  as  a  flour- 
ish of  character,  but  on  the  whole  his  interpretation 
and  use  of  it  are  subtle  and  original.  The  Wagnerian 
Leitmotif  is  not  repetition,  but  repetition  with  a 
difference;  it  is  a  recurrent  musical  phrase  modi- 
fied, reinterpreted  to  suit  changes  in  dramatic  idea 
and  music.  Back  of  these  modifications  is  the 
interpretative  function  of  orchestral  music — its 
stresses,  its  pauses,  its  ironic  comment,  its  enfolding 
acceptance.  This  amounts  to  a  threefold  use  of 
Leitmotif:  for  purposes  of  progressive  characteriza- 
tion;   as  a  principle  of  dramatic  and  musical  con- 


WAGNER  99 

tinuity;  as  a  complicating  and  enriching  principle. 
Far  from  merely  marking  or  labelling  character,  it 
is  to  uncover  its  hidden  forces  and  its  intricate 
development,  and  to  show  its  incessant  counterplay 
to  ever  modified  external  forces.  It  is  to  be  a  prin- 
ciple of  continuity,  dramatic  and  musical.  The 
mere  mechanical  repetition  of  the  same  musical 
phrase  would  have  the  reverse  effect:  it  would  stand 
out  Uke  the  recurrent  blare  of  a  trumpet  or  would 
punctuate  the  action  with  the  monotony  of  blows 
from  a  hammer.  But  when  the  phrase  is  modified, 
as  it  is  in  the  Wagnerian  Leitmotifs  it  serves  to  bind 
past  and  present  in  the  web  and  woof  of  a  continuous 
texture.  It  is  also  responsible  for  much  of  the 
richness  of  Wagner's  music  dramas.  The  dramatic 
idea  is  constantly  defining  and  re-defining  itself  in 
characters  and  plot,  is  evolving  and  dissolving  in 
greater  and  greater  complications  of  unrest;  the 
music  is  constantly  shifting  its  values,  is  soothing, 
vibrant,  stormy  in  turn;  is  constantly  flooding  the 
moment  with  all  that  went  before.  What  could  be 
more  stimulating  than  this  method  of  allowing  full 
value  to  contrasts  and  conflicts  while  gathering  them 
up  into  a  ceaseless  flow  of  change  and  development? 
What  Wagner's  music  lacks  in  delicacy  of  bouquet, 
it  makes  up  in  richness  of  blend,  in  volume,  in  tang. 

To  set  Wagner  the  Thinker  over  against  Wagner 
the  Artist,  and  then  to  judge  the  one  immeasurably 


100  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

inferior  to  the  other,  is  a  serious  mistake;  it  is 
too  much  like  an  attempt  to  separate  the  insepa- 
rable. What  of  Wagner  the  reflective  artist  or  Wag- 
ner the  thinker,  whose  thought  is  at  heart  simply 
an  artistic  demand?  Testing  the  truth  or  sound- 
ness of  Wagner's  theories  of  art  seems  to  me  un- 
profitable business;  but  to  see. in  them  the  play  of 
an  artistic  personality,  the  ideal  and  credo  of  an 
artist  to  whom  thought  itself — as  well  as  music  or 
poetry — is  a  means  of  artistic  self-expression,  seems 
well  worth  while.  The  influence  of  Schiller  and 
Schopenhauer  may  be  admitted;  so  may  the  aca- 
demic taint  in  most  of  Wagner's  essays;  but  enough 
remains  that  is  expressive  of  his  own  artistic  self. 
His  attack  on  the  culture  of  his  day  is  borrowed  in 
part,  but  it  is  not  in  what  he  borrowed  that  the 
significance  and  interest  of  this  attack  lie.  Rather 
do  they  lie  in  a  strength  of  conviction  which  is 
itself  nothing  but  the  sustaining  surface  of  an  ideal 
of  art.  The  same  holds  good  on  the  whole  of  his  con- 
structive theory  of  the  music  drama.  None  of  it 
is  so  much  cold,  hard  thinking;  it  is  the  reflective 
artist  who  takes  the  plunge,  and  what  he  brings 
to  the  surface  is  a  tangle  of  artistic  motifs. 

If  it  be  granted  that  Wagner's  theories  as  well 
as  his  music  and  poetry  are  the  work  of  the  creative 
artist  there  remains  the  task  of  getting  the  Wagner 
stamp:  the  thing  that  serves  to  mark  the  artistic 
consciousness   that   is  back  of    this  thought-tinted 


WAGNER  101 

art  and  color-soaked  thought.  That  would  be  an 
easy  matter  if  a  consciousness  like  that  of  Maeter- 
linck were  to  be  dealt  with.  We  should  then  need 
nothing  but  his  own  comment:  *'  Nothing  in  the 
whole  world  is  so  athirst  for  beauty  as  the  soul,  nor 
is  there  anything  to  which  beauty  clings  so  readily ''; 
and  an  understanding  of  the  soft,  clear  beauty  that 
glows  in  his  essays  and  plays  alike.  But  Wagner's 
is  far  from  simple.  One  word  would  not  mark  him; 
nor  would  two.  He  is  nothing  if  not  complex,  in 
character,  in  development,  in  method,  and  in  ideal. 
In  describing  his  artistic  personality  one  might  use 
the  terms  character  and  dramatic  quality,  provided — 
and  this  is  the  all-important  proviso — character 
were  here  defined  as  individuality,  strength,  intensity; 
and  dramatic  quality,  in  terms  of  conflict  and  trans- 
forming movement.  Both  as  an  artist  and  as  a 
thinker  Wagner  has  character.  His  music  is  in- 
dividual, strong  and  passionate;  his  essays  are  per- 
sonal reactions,  intense  and  high-flavored  in  style; 
and  in  his  art  and  his  prose  alike  there  is  a  lack  of 
delicacy  and  self-restraint:  a  defect  that  is  the 
very  man  himself.  As  for  dramatic  quality,  there 
is  plenty  of  a  thoroughly  characteristic  kind.  It  ex- 
presses itself  in  Wagner's  life  and  work  first  of  all  as 
conflict,  as  a  struggle  between  such  opposing  forces 
as  optimism  and  pessimism,  need  of  life  and  need 
of  love;  then  as  transforming  movement.  There 
are  other  instances  of  an  artistic  consciousness  that 


102  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

is  dramatic  at  heart:  Browning,  Rodin,  Nietzsche; 
and,  with  certain  reservations,  Hegel;  but  at  one 
point  or  another  there  is  a  sharp  contrast.  Both 
Rodin  and  Wagner  are  elemental,  passionate,  and 
dramatic  in  the  sense  of  giving  titanic  struggles. 
There  the  likeness  ends.  Rodin's  world-view  is  the 
simpler;  he  means  his  art  to  express  cosmic  struggle 
and  unrest,  cosmic  passion  and  yearning.  Dramatic 
in  this  sense,  he  is  not  dramatic  in  another;  he 
gives  no  cosmic  dialectic,  no  play  and  counterplay 
of  great  forces,  no  transforming  clash  of  ideals. 
But  these  are  the  things  that  make  up  half  the 
dramatic  power  of  Tannhauser  and  Der  Ring  des 
Nibelungen.  Where  Rodin  is  farthest  Hegel  seems 
nearest.  Reality  is  for  him  nothing  but  dialectic; 
he  gives  not  only  the  stress  of  thought,  but  its  dra- 
matic evolution  by  means  of  a  chain  of  conflicts.  In 
this  sense  his  philosophic  genius  is  dramatic  to  the 
core.  It  is  significant  that  he  has  given  a  profound 
theory  of  the  drama  in  terms  of  an  antagonism  of 
ideals,  and  hinted  at  the  principle  of  emotional 
fluidity  in  music.  But  his  life  work  in  philosophy 
lacks  full  dramatic  power;  thought-dialectic  seems 
thin  and  ghostly  when  set  over  against  the  massive- 
ness  and  the  spontaneous,  electrifying  touch  of  pas- 
sion-dialectic. Nietzsche  has  caught  the  spirit  of 
life  as  a  contest  without  end,  but  his  dramatic 
genii^  is  much  more  subjective  than  Wagner's. 
Nor   is   Wagner's   like   Schopenhauer's.     The    dra- 


WAGNER  103 

matic  is  not  the  deepest  or  most  essential  thing  about 
Schopenhauer,  neither  a  world-butchery  nor  a  Nir- 
vana being  favorable  to  it.  And  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Schopenhauer,  for  all  his  brilliant  theory  of 
music,  championed  classical  music,  as  he  did  elsewhere 
classical  architecture.  They  seem  to  touch  in  their 
emphasis  on  conflict,  but  Wagner  adds  what  Schopen- 
hauer lacks,  the  principle  of  transforming  movement. 
It  is  not  present  in  Schopenhauer's  theory  of  the  suc- 
cessive objectifications  of  will — so  many  stone  steps 
or  separate  blocks;  it  is  present  in  Wagner's  prose, 
where  an  imagination  at  once  heavy  and  impatient 
pushes  thought  into  thought  and  harmony  into  dis- 
cord; or  better  still  in  his  music:  a  music  of  violent 
contrasts,  of  fusings,  and  of  a  constantly  changing  life. 
Understood  in  this  way,  character  and  dramatic 
quality  may  serve  to  mark  Wagner  the  Artist  and  the 
Thinker. 


V 

HEGEL 

And  take  upon  us  the  mystery  of  things , 
As  if  we  were  God's  spies. 

— Shakespeare. 

At  first  sight  Hegel  seems  very  unpromising  mate- 
rial. What  in  the  way  of  interesting  art  criticism 
or  of  a  sympathetic  theory  of  art  can  be  expected 
of  a  man  who  grinds  everything  to  powder  between 
a  pedantic  terminology  and  an  aggressive  method? 
What  place  has  the  artistic  in  the  personality  of  this 
intellectual  contortionist?  And  why,  if  we  do  not 
care  for  contortions,  should  we  pay  so  high  a  price 
of  admission  to  this  most  difficult  of  all  philosophies? 

I  can  well  understand  the  temptation  to  ask  such 
questions.  One  has  to  break  into  Hegel's  system 
by  main  force;  and  will  find  there  among  much 
of  value  a  great  deal  that  is  worthless  and  puzzling. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  his  aesthetics  share  the 
defects  of  that  system.  Of  his  keen  interest  in  art 
there  can  be  no  doubt;  he  spent  much  of  his  leisure 
in  the  picture  galleries  of  Berlin  and  at  art  exhibi- 
tions, and  at  Vienna  and  Paris  he  had  more  than  a 

104 


HEGEL  105 

taste  of  Italian  opera  and  Shakespeare.  He  lacks 
technical  knowledge  just  where  it  counts  most 
heavily — in  music  and  sculpture;  it  is  here  that  he 
is  weakest.  But  his  illustrations  from  poetry  and 
painting  are  happily  chosen,  and  his  theories  illumi- 
nating as  well  as  profound.  Everywhere  he  shows 
imagination  and  judgment,  although  in  fine  per- 
ceptions and  delicate  touches  he  is  excelled  by  phil- 
osophers like  Schelling  and  Nietzsche.  As  for  his 
personality,  it  promised  little:  he  was  often  ill  at 
ease,  prosy,  and  commonplace.  Schopenhauer  had 
the  fatuous  self-assurance  to  speak  of  him  as  *^  der 
geistlosBj  plumpe  Hegel.^^  But  the  spark  of  genius 
was  in  this  absorbed,  unemotional  man,  this  sworn 
enemy  of  romanticism.  After  all,  his  very  elaborate 
and  unprepossessing  system  of  philosophy  has  its  roots 
in  the  same  creative  imagination  that  shapes  a  work 
of  art,  and  is  an  imaginative  tour  de  force  of  the  first 
order.  In  this  dramatized  romance  of  nature  and 
of  consciousness  personality  expresses  itself  quite 
as  strongly  and  plainly  as  in  art;  and  the  spirit  of 
adventure,  so  evident  in  German  Romanticism, 
here  takes  on  strange  forms.  If  these  things  are 
overlooked  Hegel  escapes,  for  it  is  only  through  the 
interpretative  imagination  that  his  meaning  can  be 
seized. 

From  1820  to  the  time  of  his  death  Hegel  lectured 
on  aesthetics  at  the  University  of  Berlin.  His 
general  system  at  that  time  stood  complete  in  outline; 


106  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

there  remained  only  the  task  of  sketching  in  and  of 
working  out  the  detail  of  his  theories  on  history, 
rehgion,  and  art.  This  work  remained  uncompleted; 
his  lectures  on  aesthetics,  like  the  others,  were  never 
put  in  final  shape  for  pubh(!ation.  Of  the  two  note- 
books on  aesthetics  which  he  left  at  his  death,  one, 
of  the  year  1818,  was  used  in  connection  with  his 
lectures  at  Heidelberg;  the  other,  of  1820,  gives  the 
substance  of  his  later  course  at  Berlin,  and  is  by  far 
the  more  important.  Much  of  this  note-book  is 
a  compact  mass  of  notes  to  guide  the  lecturer;  parts 
of  it,  especially  the  introductions  to  the  several 
divisions,  are  fully  written  out.  From  year  to  year 
loose  sheets  were  inserted,  marginal  remarks  added, 
and  the  manuscript  changed  here  and  there.  In 
view  of  all  this,  the  task  Hotho,  one  of  Hegel's 
students,  set  himself  in  1835,  of  reconstructing  and 
publishing  his  master's  aesthetic  theories,  was  not 
an  easy  one.  What  he  did  was  to  take  the  two 
books,  compare  with  them  sets  of  students'  notes — 
on  the  assumption  that  they  might  be  valuable  if 
they  could  be  had  in  large  numbers — fill  in  what  tran- 
sitions seemed  lacking,  and  give  as  much  of  Hegel's 
own  language  as  he  possibly  could.  One  need  not 
quarrel  with  the  result,  for  these  three  volumes  are 
rich  to  the  point  of  embarrassment;  so  rich  in  fact 
in  special  and  general  problems  that  it  becomes  im- 
possible to  take  more  than  an  armful  of  this  wealth 
at  a  time. 


HEGEL  107 

With  the  grave  and  judicial  enthusiasm  so  charac- 
teristic of  him,  Hegel  first  takes  up  the  problem  of 
material  and  method,  and  widens  it  out  into  the 
problem  of  aim.  To  him  the  material  of  aesthetics 
is  the  beautiful  in  art.  This  he  distinguishes  from 
the  beautiful  in  nature,  for  that  is  imperfect,  incom- 
plete, not  willed  as  such,  and  therefore  not  reborn 
of  the  spirit. 

But  does  this  material  admit  of  success  and  is  it 
worth  while?  Art  expresses  the  be5.utiful  in  so 
many  different  forms,  breaks  it  up  into  so  many- 
types,  is  so  riotously  and  joyously  free  that  any 
orderly  system  of  principles  seems  impossible.  Worse 
still,  is  art  really  worth  the  attempt?  Is  it  not  after 
all  a  frivolous  amusement,  an  entertaining  and  de- 
ceptive shadowplay?  Hegel  has  the  curiosity  to 
raise  these  questions  and  the  courage  to  answer  them 
in  the  negative.  Not  only  does  he  feel  sure  that  his 
method  can  take  care  of  even  the  most  riotous  ma- 
terial, but  he  is  also  a  most  determined  and  devoted 
champion  of  the  dignity  of  art. 

Nothing  could  be  farther  from  Hegel's  thought 
than  a  contemptuous  attitude  toward  art,  such  as 
Plato's.  It  seems  strange  that  art  should  be  dealt 
its  hardest  blows  by  a  man  whose  artistic  genius 
shows  itself  in  vivid  and  biting  character  sketches, 
in  scene-painting  and  settings,  in  an  ample  and 
wonderfully  flexible  diction,  and  in  a  reach  which 
allows  him  to  handle  the  most  abstruse  problems 


108  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

gracefully  and  profoundly.  Metaphysics  gives  the 
key  to  the  puzzle.  Plato  holds  art  to  be  the  impover- 
ished imitation  of  an  imitation.  Of  the  real  world — 
perfect,  changeless,  unmoved,  eternal — the  world  of 
everyday  perception,  of  colors,  sounds,  and  bodies, 
is  but  an  imperfect  copy.  It  is  this  poor  copy  that 
the  artist  in  his  turn  sets  himself  to  imitate.  By 
flattening  a  tri-dimensional  object  out  on  canvas 
the  painter  distorts  it,  and  fails  to  give  both  its 
complex  nature  and  its  purpose,  which  is  the  essen- 
tial thing  about  it.  Who  would  wish  to  sleep  in  a 
bed  daubed  on  canvas?  or  have  Homer  fashion 
a  shield  or  lead  an  army?  To  this  any  one  but  a 
philosopher  would  reply:  Who  would  not  prefer  a 
carpenter's  bed,  imperfect  as  it  is,  to  the  eternal 
Type,  or  Idea  of  a  bed?  To  Plato's  mind  art  is  use- 
less and  dangerous  because  he  feels  that  it  cheapens 
and  distorts  even  the  shallow  world  in  which  it  moves 
and  has  its  being.  Small  wonder  then  that  he  bowed 
out  of  his  ideal  commonwealth  those  '^  multiform 
gentlemen "  the  artists,  fastening  upon  them  the 
reproach  of  being  pleasing  tricksters  and  charlatans 
of  a  beggared  life. 

Hegel  answers  Plato  by  implication.  He  admits 
at  once  that  if  art  were  imitative  of  nature  in  Plato's 
sense  and  restricted  to  that  aim  it  would  either  score 
a  trivial  and  fruitless  victory  or  have  to  acknowledge 
an  utter  defeat.  Zeuxis  may  have  painted  grapes 
so  astonishingly  real  that  birds  came  and  pecked  at 


HEGEL  109 

them — but  is  it  not  cheapening  art  to  judge  of  it  in 
terms  of  imitative  skill.  This  exceptional  success 
means  nothing;  on  the  whole  the  imitative  artist 
is  hopelessly  handicapped  when  he  tries  to  copy 
natural  objects  literally.  If  Hegel  had  lived  at  a 
time  of  imitative  mania  in  art,  he  might  have  ampli- 
fied this  thought  of  his.  The  painter  in  color  and 
light  and  shade  effects  lacks  the  range  and  variety 
of  nature;  he  cannot  give  the  full  intensity  of  light. 
The  composer  simply  strains  his  art  unpleasantly  if 
he  falls  into  the  obsessions  of  programme-music; 
the  microscopic  novelist,  too,  attempts  the  impossi- 
ble. Why  then  stop  here  where  art  must  fail  instead 
of  pushing  on?  Here  is  where  Plato  and  Hegel  part 
company.  Art  for  Hegel  is  not  ineffective  copying; 
it  reveals  reality.  Far  from  brushing  the  mere 
surface  of  Ufe,  it  sounds  it  to  its  very  depth;  that  is 
why  Hegel  is  impressed  with  its  dignity  and  impor- 
tance. "  Only  when  it  is  free  is  fine  art  truly  art. 
It  fulfils  its  highest  task  only  when  it  brings  to  con- 
sciousness and  expresses  the  divine,  the  deepest 
interests  of  man,  the  largest  truths  of  the  Spirit. 
This  task  rehgion,  philosophy,  and  art  have  in  com- 
mon, and  each  solves  it  in  its  own  way.''  It  is  the 
spiritual  interpreter  and  liberator  of  man.  It  frees 
him  from  himself  and  from  external  nature;  from 
himself  by  sparing  him  the  rawness  and  oppressive- 
ness of  passion,  and  by  giving  him  what  is  essential 
to    all    true    culture — self-detachment    and    a    rich, 


110  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

creative  development;  from  nature  by  allowing  him 
to  set  the  seal  of  the  spirit  on  the  outer  world,  by 
giving  him  scope  to  express  all  that  is  his  and  to  find 
himself  in  all  that  is.  In  art  nature  is  vergeistigt; 
spiritualized;  reborn  of  the  spirit. 

Here  are  all  the  elements  of  a  cultural  theory  of 
art.  But  Hegel  takes  care  not  to  commit  himself  to 
a  narrowly  moral  or  intellectual  view.  It  is  not  the 
purpose  of  art  to  edify,  to  make  some  scheme  of  social 
progress  palatable,  or  to  convey  intellectual  truth  in 
abstract  terms.  But  art,  rightly  understood  and  given 
free  play,  is  a  great  cultural  force,  for  together  with 
philosophy  and  religion  it  has  won  life  over  to  the 
uses  of  the  Spirit.  It  has  been  the  great  teacher  of 
man,  has  softened  his  savagery,  has  made  him 
keenly  responsive  to  the  formal  side  of  nature,  and 
keenly  alive  to  what  he  had  it  in  him  to  be.  The 
first  man  to  etch  rude  drawings  on  his  weapons  or 
to  fashion  his  cooking  and  drinking  utensils  in  pleas- 
ing shapes  freed  himself  from  the  grossly  material 
response  to  impulses  and  passions  that  threatened 
to  grip  and  crush  his  whole  being.  The  first  man  to 
voice  his  feelings  in  music  and  song  disengaged 
himself  from  bruising  contact  with  life  and  found 
himself.  Instead  of  devouring  the  world  as  material, 
art  appropriates  it  as  form. 

Back  of  all  this  is  the  ideality  and  the  verve  of 
the  classical  period  of  German  literature.  With  no 
constructive  ideal  of  political  or  industrial  strength 


HEGEL  111 

at  hand  and  with  no  well-trained,  finely  discrimina- 
tive art  taste  to  single  out  sharply  limited  problems 
of  craftsmanship  and  technique,  German  idealism 
poured  like  a  flood  across  the  field  of  art.  Herder's 
eager  alertness,  Goethe's  sane  and  lofty  conception 
of  art,  Schiller's  enthusiasm,  the  Romanticists 
with  their  perplexing  blend  of  extravagance  and 
insight — they  are  simply  so  many  different  instances 
of  a  force  which  was  bound  to  throw  all  the  weight 
on  the  one  far-reaching  problem  of  the  place  of  art 
in  the  ideal  development  of  man.  Schiller  had 
assigned  to  art  a  very  high  position.  Into  what  he 
regarded  the  crass  materialism  and  the  sorry  politics 
of  his  time  he  thrust  it  as  the  great  ennobler  of  the 
human  race.  Hegel  according  to  his  own  confession, 
was  profoundly  influenced  by  Schiller.  But  the  in- 
fluence of  that  high-minded,  if  somewhat  vague  and 
rhetorical,  view  of  art  did  not  stop  with  Hegel;  and  is 
to  be  found  in  Schopenhauer,  Wagner,  and  Nietzsche. 
With  this  cultural  theory  in  mind  Hegel  imposes 
a  twofold  task  on  art:  it  is  to  give  what  is  essential 
and  real  in  nature;  and  it  is  to  express  more  and 
more  effectively  and  largely  the  self-expressive  and 
self-expansive  principle  which  Hegel  calls  Geistj 
or  Spirit.  This  task  at  once  marks  sharply  the 
two  main  divisions  of  his  aesthetics.  He  gives  a 
discussion  of  the  idea  of  beauty  in  art;  and  then  he 
exhibits  this  idea  of  beauty  in  its  dialectic,  that 
is,  in  its  development. 


112  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Beauty  is  reaKty  shining  through  the  sensuous 
medium.  With  this  metaphysical  definition  the 
shadow  of  Hegel's  system  begins  to  slant  across  his 
aesthetics;  and  a  black  shadow  it  is.  Of  all  phil- 
osophies HegeFs  is  most  ingenious,  most  imagina- 
tive, most  difficult,  and,  one  might  add,  most 
tyrannical  in  the  control  of  its  parts.  Nothing 
in  it  is  allowed  to  stand  by  itself;  and  so  art  has 
to  shoulder  the  burden  of  meta,physics.  Reality 
means  many  things  to  many  minds.  To  the  com- 
mon man  it  suggests  the  here  and  now,  the  tan- 
gible or  something  of  the  sort;  to  Plato  it  meant  an 
intangible,  perfect,  and  eternally  fixed  world.  With 
Hegel  it  is  at  heart  a  process  unfolding  and  express- 
ing itself  in  and  through  experience  and  working 
itself  out  by  a  certain  law  of  movement.  This 
movement  is  from  the  indefinite,  the  abstract,  the 
potential  to  the  definite,  the  concrete,  the  com- 
pletely actualized;  and  the  three  moments  are: 
thesis,  antithesis,  synthesis.  Throughout  his  system 
Hegel  uses  these  terms  and  seeks  to  show  the  neces- 
sary changes  of  their  dialectic;  how  a  thing  is 
affirmed,  or  posited;  how  its  own  inherent  weaknesses 
negate  it,  or  wreck  it;  and  how  a  higher  reaffirma- 
tion comes  from  the  wreckage.  There  is  implied  in 
this  movement  a  self-evolving,  self-expressing  prin- 
ciple which  Hegel  calls  Geist^  or  Spirit.  The  great 
triad  of  his  system — Mind,  Nature,  Spirit — represents 
the  three  acts  in  this  profound  drama  of  the  evolu- 


HEGEL  113 

tion  of  the  Spirit.  Act  One:  a  set  of  abstract,  empty 
forms,  onesided  and  therefore  self-destructive. 
Spirit  at  this  stage  is  neither  concretely  organized 
nor  fully  embodied.  Act  Two:  weary  of  this 
sheer  emptiness  the  Spirit  goes  out  of  itself  into  the 
world  of  nature;  there  it  becomes  self -estranged; 
loses  itself  in  the  external.  Act  Three:  Spirit 
rouses  itself  from  its  strange,  self-forgetful  sleep  in 
nature  and  creates  for  itself  a  realm  of  the  ideal 
in  art,  religion,  and  philosophy.*  It  has  overcome 
its  unfilled  vagueness.  It  has  taken  hold  of  itself 
and  become  strong  and  rich  through  its  adventures. 
Its  life  has  swung  full  circle,  but  what  a  difference 
in  strength,  substance,  and  self-mastery  between 
its  outgoing  and  home  coming! 

All  this  may  seem  romance  clad  in  a  most  dis- 
heartening jargon  and  marked  by  loose  talk  and  forced 
transitions.  But  there  is  a  certain  fascination  about 
this  world  drama  in  which  the  Spirit  creates  itself 
and  passes  with  an  orderliness  at  once  ghostly  and 
telling  to  ever  richer  phases  of  development. 

Hegel  never  puts  this  drama  quite  so  baldly  as  I 
have  put  it;  but  it  inheres  deeply  in  his  system. 
Beauty  in  art,  whose  definition  is  our  present  con- 
cern, belongs  to  the  home  curve  of  this  dramatic 
adventure  of  the  Spirit:  the  creation  of  an  ideal 
realm,  as  Hegel  calls  it.  If  it  is  true  that  the  in- 
terpretative imagination  furnishes  the  key  to  Hegel, 
then  the  meaning  of  his  theory  of  reality  and  his  con- 


9 


i 


114  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

ception  of  beauty  might  be  made  clear  by  the  par- 
allelism of  a  tragedy  like  King  Lear,  No  one  would 
deny  that  King  Lear  is  a  play  of  profound  significance 
or  that  this  significance  is  a  development.  The 
interest  is  cumulative  and  grows  from  scene  to  scene. 
At  first  it  is  extraneous  and  direct;  the  characters 
are  as  yet  vague,  unfilled,  or  their  appeal  is  a  narrow 
one.  In  the  partition  scene  Lear  is  perfectly  in- 
dividualized, but  only  as  a  peevish  old  man;  Regan 
and  Goneril  are  two  evil  shadows;  Cordelia  gives 
but  the  promise  of  her  later  rich  self.  The  Gloster 
scenes  are  brutally  direct.  But  we  become  con- 
scious of  profound  parallelisms;  broader  issues; 
larger  interests;  enriched  and  universalized  char- 
acter, as  with  crest  after  crest  of  disaster  the  tragic 
interest  pounds  its  way.  The  significance,  or  mean- 
ing, of  King  Lear  is  not  something  outside  and  be- 
yond: it  is  just  this  self-evolving  and  self-deepening 
spirituality;  this  passing  from  the  outer  to  the 
inner,  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  from  the 
particular  or  the  bare  universal  to  the  concrete 
universal.  The  tragedy  is  alive  with  passion  and 
feeling,  but  there  is  something  added — imagination 
and  thought,  restless  and  penetrative,  catching  the 
dissonances  of  human  life;  visualizing  reason  de- 
throned, justice  perverted;  and  striking  in  the 
recognition  scene  a  wonderfully  mellow  and  quiet- 
ing note. 

Shakespeare  in  King  Lear  has  achieved  an  organic 


HEGEL  115 

unity,  a  fusion  of  the  particular  and  the  universal, 
and  the  giving  a  profound  significance  to  characters 
and  incidents.  These  three  things  correspond  to 
the  three  chief  points  in  HegeFs  conception  of 
beauty. 

The  idea  jR^aim^j^bf  has  a  peculiar  fascination  / 

for  Hegel.  A  mere  aggregate  does  not  please  him, 
for  a  thing  whose  nature  is  indifferent  to  the  taking 
away  or  slapping  on  of  parts  interests  him  but  little. 
He  must  have  what  would  collapse  under  such  con- 
ditions; the  thing  whose  parts  share  in  a  common 
life:  the  organism.  Wherever  nature  fashions  such 
an  organism  she  comes  nearest  beauty.  Not  that 
Hegel  fails  to  see  the  inferior  beauties  of  mere  aggre- 
gates: "  In  this  respect  abstract  purity  in  form, 
color,  tone,  etc.,  is  at  this  point  the  essential  thing. 
Clean-drawn  lines,  running  along  uniformly  and 
not  with  wavering  indecision,  smooth  surfaces,  etc., 
are  satisfying  because  of  their  firm  decisiveness  and 
uniform  self-agreement.  The  purity  of  the  sky,  the 
clearness  of  the  atmosphere,  a  mirror-like  lake  or  a 
smooth  sea  are  pleasing  for  this  reason.  The  same 
is  true  of  purity  of  tones."  But  all  the  emphasis  of 
his  thought  is  on  the  beauty  of  organic  unity.  Of  all 
natural  forms  he  holds  the  human  body  to  be  most 
beautiful  because  it  shows  such  a  wonderful  and 
subtle  inter-relation  of  parts.  Cut  a  hand  off — the 
whole  body  suffers,  and  the  hand  decays.    Where- 


116  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

ever  there  is  in  nature  a  lack  of  such  unity,  as  in  mixed 
animal  forms  like  the  crocodile  or  combinations  of 
bird  and  reptile,  ugliness  results.  In  art  organic 
unity  is  quite  as  important  an  element  of  beauty. 

There  is  a  philosopher's  bias  in  all  this,  for  while 
to  him  the  notion  of  organic  unity  is  a  necessary  tool 
whose  use  is  intellectually  stimulating,  there  is  no 
valid  reason  for  putting  the  natural  beauty  of  organic 
bodies  at  so  high  a  notch  or  for  seeing  in  organic 
unity  the  highest  principle  of  the  beauty  of  art.  Of 
all  the  arts  sculpture  deals  most  directly  with  self- 
complete,  organic  material — man  and  animals;  its 
technique  is  bound  to  the  strictest  economy  and 
interrelationship  of  parts.  But  it  seems  to  lose 
rather  than  gain  through  this;  and  is  perhaps  the  poor- 
est of  the  arts  in  point  of  resources.  What  of  Rodin? 
might  be  asked.  Rodin  makes  much  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  organic  unity:  his  figures  and  groups  are  com- 
pact; his  technique  is  a  very  accurate  and  very 
complex  working  out  of  the  mutual  bearings  of  post- 
ure, bone,  tendon,  and  muscle.  But  after  all,  the 
real  principle  of  unity  with  him  is  some  symboUc 
idea — thought,  lust,  work,  love,  self-reproach;  an 
idea  of  which  the  body,  whether  self-absorbed  or 
struggling  or  limp,  is  the  living  and  detailed  expres- 
sion. Rodin  chooses  ideas  that  are  primitive  and 
as  limitless  in  sweep  as  a  ray  of  light;  in  this  way  he 
gets  the  imaginative  equivalent  of  a  stretch  of  color 
or  a  mass  of  sensuous  material,  and  avoids  the  danger 


HEGEL  117 

of  too  bare  and  too  stubborn  an  emphasis  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  organic  unity.  This  seems  the  only  way 
sculpture  has  of  freshening  itself.  Modern  sculpture 
must  be  dramatic,  expressive;  and  must  work  a 
natural  S3nnbolism  closely  into  the  marble;  it  must 
make  use  of  ideas  that  rouse  the  imagination.  The 
younger  French  and  Belgian  sculptors  seem  to  have 
realized  this — witness  such  subjects  as:  Thought, 
The  Dream,  Accident,  In  the  Evening  of  Life.  Better 
illustrations  still  are  Meunier's  Puddlers  at  the 
Furnace,  Fire-damp,  The  Mower,  and  Lambeaux' 
The  Human  Passions,  A  like  change  is  found  in  the 
other  arts.  Outline  and  composition  are  not  felt  to 
be  all  important  in  painting,  for  here  too  studied  or 
too  elaborate  a  relation  of  part  to  part  and  of  parts  to 
the  whole  seems  to  detract  from  the  aesthetic  value. 
We  demand  something  else,  and  employ  either  the 
principle  of  separate  blotches  of  color  or  that  of 
atmosphere — something  that  softens  and  dissolves. 
The  change  appears  strongly  in  Whistler's  painting 
and  Debussy's  music.  The  modern  drama  has  freed 
itself  from  abject  slavery  to  the  notion  of  organic 
unity  in  plot  and  character.  A  play  like  Maeter- 
linck's The  Death  of  Tintagiles  is  simply  a  mood — a 
study  in  delicate  greys  and  sombre  blacks;  structure 
in  the  old,  conventional  sense  is  given  up  for  the 
sake  of  a  veiled  and  intimate  beauty.  Playwrights 
like  Strindberg,  Brieux,  and  Galsworthy  make  the 
same  sacrifice  for  other  reasons;   under  the  stress  of 


118  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

reflection  and  moral  ideas  they  regard  a  play  as  a  bit 
of  life,  a  fragment  of  meshwork,  cut  into  at  random 
and  left  with  a  thousand  loose  ends.  The  dramatic 
treatment  of  character  shows  as  radical  a  change. 
To  us  with  our  notions  of  heredity,  of  layers  of 
character  development,  of  outflows  and  inflows  of 
social  currents,  there  seems  something  false  and 
artificial  in  the  idea  of  characters  as  complete  and  self- 
closed  as  billiard  balls  spinning  about  and  banging 
against  each  other.  Rather  do  we  conceive  of 
character  as  the  point  of  an  angle  whose  sides  straddle 
the  universe. 

Such  criticism  of  Hegel  may  easily  be  pushed  too 
far.  After  all,  the  two  other  demands  he  makes  of 
beauty  go  far  towards  correcting  the  excess  of  his 
emphasis  on  organic  unity. 

\  \  Beauty  is  somehow  a  fusion  of  the  universal  and  the 
>.|  particular.  There  is  no  disputing  the  fact;  art  does 
give  what  is  at  once  the  individual  and  the  type. 
Shakespeare  does  it  in  all  his  plays,  but  most  strik- 
ingly in  Hamlet;  Thackeray  individualizes  so  im- 
portant and  so  slight  a  thing  as  an  English  butler; 
Flaubert  does  it  with  the  most  trivial  objects;  Dickens 
often  fails;  Arnold  Bennett  succeeds  in  his  Old  Wives^ 
Tale.  But  how  explain  this  secret  of  the  artist;  this 
way  he  has  of  taking  anything,  from  a  rag  doll  to  a  cab 
horse  or  a  hitching  post,  and  having  it  stand  out  as 
something  absolutely  apart,  itself  only,  and  yet  mark- 


HEGEL  119 

ing  it  with  the  full  meaning  of  its  class?  Is  it  a  very- 
painstaking  observation;  or  is  it  a  trick  of  the  imagi- 
nation? Maupassant  touches  on  this  problem  in  the 
preface  to  Pierre  et  Jean,  With  Hegel  it  widens  out 
into  the  question:  How  comes  it  that  some  particular 
incident,  some  ordinary,  everyday  character,  when 
interpreted  by  the  artist,  strikes  us  with  the  sharp 
thrust  and  full  meaning  of  the  universal?  He  offers 
no  solution  other  than  putting  the  whole  weight  of 
his  philosophical  system  back  of  it.  Others  have 
different  ways  of  failing;  and  the  problem  remains 
unsolved.  But  the  fact  itself  of  the  fusion  of  par- 
ticular and  universal  is  one  of  great  aesthetic  interest; 
it  underlies  the  artist's  practice  and  appears  largely 
in  his  reflection.  Rodin's  discussion  of  Millet's 
Gleaners  is  one  example  out  of  many.  Here  as  well 
as  in  Rodin's  references  to  portrait  painting  there  is 
a  strange  likeness  between  his  views  and  Hegel's — 
further  proof  that  Hegel's  imagination  is  artistic 
in  type,  at  least  in  its  deeper  motives. 

Hegel  applies  his  theory  that  beauty  is  a  blend  of 
the  particular  and  universal;  and  one  of  the  most 
striking  uses  he  makes  of  it  is  in  his  interpretion  of 
Dutch  genre  painting.  In  subject  these  pictures  seem 
trivial  or  repellent.  There  are  fat  burghers  smoking 
their  pipes;  boors  gambling  and  quarrelling  over 
their  drink;  inn-yards  and  barn-yards  with  the 
children  as  dirty  and  contented  as  the  pigs  and  dogs. 
But  there  are  also  spotless  kitchen  scenes,  glimpses  of 


120  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

the  council  chamber,  bits  of  road,  soil,  dike  and  sea. 
Hegel  urges  us  to  turn  from  the  subject  of  these 
pictures  to  their  spirit.  We  are  to  see  in  them  a  life 
of  broad  animal  enjoyment,  of  naive  delight  in  solid- 
ity and  comfort — lousy  comfort  at  times — a  spirit 
of  enterprise,  a  hard-earned  freedom,  civic  pride  as 
well  as  pride  in  neat  housewifery,  an  expansive  spirit 
of  achievement  and  pleasure.  This  is  the  universal 
element  in  Dutch  art.  Such  an  interpretation  may 
easily  become  fanciful.  Hegel  neglects  the  purely 
technical  redemption  of  a  trivial  or  "  low  "  subject. 
The  color  possibiHties  in  the  mottled  face  and  arms 
of  a  washerwoman  may  attract  a  painter;  while  he 
may  have  no  thought  of  the  symbolism  of  grinding 
toil. 

I 

I        A  work  of  art  must  be  concretely  significant.    This 

I  is  Hegel's  third  test  of  beauty.  Somehow  art 
makes  life  seem  larger  and  more  significant.    In  a 

I  spirit  of  creative  abundance,  it  gives  a  concrete 
ideality  of  treatment  and  a  tingling  sense  of  larger 
issues.  Whenever  art  reveals  in  this  manner  life 
in  its  reaches  and  meanings,  it  has  achieved  beauty. 
HegePs  formula,  concrete  significance  of  life,  is  not 
narrow  or  bigoted.  On  principle  it  would  admit 
almost  any  subject  and  a  great  variety  of  inter- 
pretations. No  aspect  of  life  is  either  too  humble 
and  ugly  or  too  frivolous  or  too  depraved  to  serve 
as  material  for  the  truly  great  artist.    In  this  sense 


HEGEL  121 

Millet,  Meunier,  Rodin,  Rops,  Gorky,  Maupassant, 
Baudelaire,  and  Verlaine  are  great  artists:  they 
have  given  the  concrete  significance  of  neglected 
phases  of  life.  Rodin,  quite  in  the  spirit  of  HegeFs 
discussion  of  Dutch  art,  points  to  the  broadly  human 
side  of  Millet's  Gleaners  as  a  test.  It  is  easy  to 
understand  the  danger  of  straining  this  principle, 
and  to  sympathize  with  the  artist  when  he  demands 
a  purely  technical  discussion  of  points.  Why  not 
refer  to  de  Hooch's  excellent  treatment  of  interiors 
and  of  sunlight,  Goya's  color,  Rops's  handling 
of  line,  Flaubert's  relentless  analysis  of  character, 
Maupassant's  clear-cut  descriptive  power,  and  Ver- 
laine's  simple  and  haunting  verse?  Why  bring  in 
a  general  and  indefinite  standard  of  excellence? 
And  yet  when  artist  and  art  critic  are  pushed  they 
may  be  made  to  admit  that  the  interpretative 
handHng  of  his  material  is  one  of  the  tests  legitimately 
applied  to  the  artist.  After  all,  technique  is  only  a 
means  by  which  the  artist  conveys  what  he  feels 
to  be  the  concrete  significance,  or  the  expressive 
capacities  of  his  subject.  One  might  wish  there  had 
been  more  of  the  technical  discussion  of  points  in 
Hegel,  but  that  is  no  reason  for  rejecting  in  bulk 
what  turns  out  to  have  a  very  interesting  bearing 
on  two  troublesome  things:  imitation  and  ideal- 
ization. 

No  one  could  insist  more  strongly   than  Hegel 
did  on  imitation  in  the  sense  of  observing  closely  and 


^ 


122  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

impartially   and   giving   results.    Thought   to   him 
is  not  something  arbitrary;  it  is  fitting  oneself  sym- 
pathetically to  the  rational  structure  and  movement 
of  reality,  a  process  by  which  thought  and  its  object 
both  become  enriched.    Art  sets  in  at  one  stage  of 
this  enriching  process,  and  is  fitting  oneself  sym- 
pathetically to  whatever  of  Geist,  or  Spirit,  presents 
itself  in  sensuous  form.    In  this  sense  art  is  an  ob- 
jective imitation  of  what  it  chooses  to  portray  or 
fashion.    But  the  imitation  is  selective.    If  life  is 
^   interpreted  as  a  self-expressing  movement,  a  self- 
realizing  process  of  spirit,  then  concrete  significance 
must  ultimately  mean  catching  the  spiritual  import 
of  any  group  of  facts  at  its  richest,  and  catching 
also  something  of  the  outlook  and  onrush  toward  the 
)    next  phase  of  the  process.     Spirit  is  not  completely 
I   and  adequately  expressed  in  nature;  art  steps  in  and 
I  clears  it  of  such  imperfections,  seizes  on  the  essen- 
y  tial,   and   thus   liberates   the   soul   of   appearances. 
!  This    is   what    idealization    means    to    Hegel.    To 
idealize  is  not  to  falsify.     The   ideal  tree  is  not  a 
vague  something  that  is  neither  oak  nor  elm  nor 
birch  nor  maple.    To  get  the  bare  essentials  of  tree- 
hood, — whose  nature  only  a  Platonist  would  attempt 
to  define, — is  unprofitable  from  the  point  of  view 
of  art.    With  such  a  reduction  to  a  general  type 
Hegel  has  no  sympathy,  for  the  drive  of  his  thought  j 
is  aimed  at  concrete  and   not  abstract,  significance.  - 
Compare  an  oak  with  a  birch  and  you  will  discover, 


HEGEL  123 

in  addition  to  peculiarities  of  size,  of  leaf  and  bark 
formation,  certain  expressive  lines  which  seem  to 
give  the  character  and  the  very  life  of  the  oak  or 
the  birch.  And  to  say  of  a  particular  oak,  "  That 
oak  has  Character,"  does  not  simply  mean  that  there 
is  something  decisive  and  striking  about  it;  what  it 
really  means  is  that  this  oak  is  individual  and  at 
the  same  time  expressive  of  all  that  is  characteristic 
of  oak  formation.  Among  other  things  this  tree 
gives  very  sharply  the  vigor  and  ruggedness  of 
oaks.  Inessential  things  must  be  cleared  away  if 
this  idea  is  to  be  expressed  forcibly  in  your  painting 
of  the  oak.  The  problem  here  runs  back  into  that 
of  the  fusion  of  individual  and  universal.  How  can 
we  bring  out  the  essential  class  characteristics  of  an 
oak  and  yet  make  our  oak  absolutely  individual? 
To  which  the  only  answer  is :  *^  It  may  be  impossible, 
but  it  is  done."  Rodin,  for  instance,  does  it.  He 
imitates  in  the  Hegelian  sense;  he  is  very  accurate 
and  sympathetic  in  his  study  of  his  material,  in- 
dividualizes his  figures  utterly,  but  universalizes 
them  as  well  by  having  some  symbolic  idea  spring 
naturally  from  the  plastic  surface-play  of  their 
bodies.  An  artist  may  paint  with  a  hungry  eye  to 
a  particular  cloud,  but  his  art  is  the  gainer  if 
he  can  somehow  give  [something  of  the  elasticity 
and  fleetingness  of  clouds. 

Idealization  then  for  Hegel  is  imitation  rightly 
stressed  and  selective  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 


124  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

out  the  inner  life  and  the  concrete  significance 
of  an  object.  His  own  illustration  is  illuminating. 
A  portrait  painter  must  not  be  a  slavish  imitator  of 
nature;  he  must  omit  much  that  he  sees — slight  dis- 
colorations  and  blemishes  of  the  skin.  His  portrait 
contains  more  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  face  of  the 
sitter  at  any  given  time,  his  aim  being  to  liberate 
the  spiritual  import  of  the  face,  which  is  never 
given  completely  at  any  single  moment  in  life,  hence 
the  deadness  of  so  many  photographs.  He  brushes 
aside  the  surface  facts  that  cloud  it;  he  goes  straight 
to  the  heart  of  the  essential.* 

Rodin,  who  champions  a  theory  of  the  significant 
not  unlike  that  of  Hegel,  argues  similarly  on  this 

*  "  Even  the  portrait  painter,  who  has  least  to  do  with  the  ideal 
in  art,  must  flatter  his  subject  by  omitting  all  externalities  in  figure 
and  expression,  in  form,  color,  and  features;  he  omits  the  merely 
ijatural  of  scant  existence:  the  little  hairs,  pores,  scars,  blotches  on 
'the  skin.  He  must  interpret  his  subject  in  his  universal  character 
and  in  his  permanent  spiritual  cast.  There  is  all  the  difference  in 
the  world  between  copying  a  face  as  it  is  on  the  surface,  getting  its 
quiet  external  form,  and  representing  the  features  in  their  truth 
and  in  their  expression  of  the  man's  very  soul.  It  is  essential  to  the 
Ideal  that  the  external  form  correspond  to  the  soul.  So-called 
living  pictures,  quite  recently  come  in  vogue,  imitate  very  nicely 
and  pleasantly  noted  works  of  art.  They  seem  to  catch  the  decora- 
tive effect,  the  draping,  etc.,  but  they  often  jar  because  common- 
place faces  spoil  the  spiritual  expression  of  the  figures  imitated. 
Raphael's  madonnas,  on  the  other  hand,  give  us  forms  of  the  counte- 
nance, of  cheeks,  eyes,  nose,  and  mouth  which  in  and  of  themselves 
express  perfectly  a  mother's  love  in  its  blessedness,  joyousness, 
devoutness,  and  humility." 


HEGEL  125 

point.  He  refers  to  Houdon's  busts,  especially  to  his 
inimitable  bust  of  Voltaire,  and  shows  how  Houdon 
has  seized  upon  the  very  essence  of  his  man,  and  how 
in  busts  like  those  of  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  Ben- 
jamin Franklin,  race,  class,  and  individuality  stand 
out.  The  art  is  so  grippingly  effective  simply 
because  Houdon  has  idealized  rightly,  has  liberated 
the  soul  of  appearances.  It  is  surprising  to  find  so 
close  an  agreement  between  the  casual  thought  of 
a  great  creative  artist  like  Rodin  and  the  carefully 
and  intricately  planned  theories  of  Hegel. 

Organic  unity^  individuality ^  and  concrete  signifi- 
cance then  go  to  make  up  the  beautiful  in  art.  But 
the  idea  of  development  is  too  securely  built  into 
Hegel's  philosophy  to  allow  him  to  stop  here,  for  art 
to  him  is  a  self-expressive  movement  growing  ever 
richer  in  meaning,  ever  more  subtle  and  self -masterful, 
and  ever  more  resourceful  in  technique.  That  there 
is  a  difference  in  significance  in  different  works  of 
art  might  at  once  be  admitted.  One  need  only 
compare  any  work  of  Greek  sculpture  with  Michael 
Angelo's  Captive  Slave,  or  the  Hippolytus  of  Euripides 
with  Racine's  Phedre,  Such  differences  Hegel  inter- 
prets not  psychologically  as  many  would  have  done, 
but  culturally.  The  art  of  any  period  gives  the  spirit 
and  the  culture  of  that  period;  consider  it  cut  loose 
from  these,  and  it  becomes  unintelligible.  Greek 
tragedy  cannot  be  understood  apart  from  certain 


126  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

religious  beliefs  and  forms  of  worship;  Oriental  art 
has  its  roots  in  Oriental  religion;  only  the  man  who 
understands  the  mediaeval  mind  can  catch  the  spirit 
of  mediaeval  art.  This  seems  an  attractive  way  of 
looking  at  art,  and  one  that  lends  itself  to  interesting 
developments,  such  as  the  historical  method  of  Taine. 
But  it  has  its  weaknesses:  forced  readings  and  an 
intolerance  of  revivals  such  as  the  mediaevalism  of 
the  German  Romanticists,  the  art  of  the  Pre-Raphael- 
ites,  the  mermaids  and  centaurs  of  a  Boecklin  or  a 
Stuck,  and  the  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  element  in 
recent  German  sculpture.  Hegel  avoids  some  of  the 
dangers  by  using  the  theory  of  cultural  development 
in  rather  a  large  and  general  way.  He  exploits  it 
dramatically  by  fastening  on  three  phases  or  stages 
of  such  development:  the  symbolic,  the  classical ,  and 
the  romantic. 

The  symbolic  period,  or  phase  of  art,  sounds  very 
formidable  in  Hegelian  language: 

**  Indefinite,  the  Idea  still  lacks  the  individuality 
of  true  beauty;  abstract  and  onesided,  it  causes  the 
form  to  be  inadequate  and  arbitrary.  This  first 
phase  of  art  is,  therefore,  merely  a  groping  for  a  true 
pictorial  representation;  the  Idea  has  not  yet  found 
its  true  form  and  is  struggling  to  find  it.  This  may 
be  called  the  symbolic  art  form.  In  it  the  Idea  has 
its  form  in  the  natural,  sensuous  material;  from 
this  material  its  fashioning  springs,  and  to  it  it  is 
bound.  Natural  objects  are  either  left  as  they  are, 
the  Idea  being  put  into  them  as  their  meaning  and 


i 


HEGEL  127 

their  natural  interpretation.  .  .  •  or  consciousness 
may  be  struck  by  the  lack  of  correspondence  between 
natural  object  and  Idea.  When  the  Idea,  incapable 
of  expressing  itself  in  any  other  reality,  pours  itself 
forth  into  these  forms,  seeks  itself  in  them  restlessly 
and  recklessly,  and  still  finds  them  inadequate,  it 
magnifies  such  natural  forms  and  appearances  to  the 
very  top  of  the  excessive  and  the  vague;  it  reels 
around  in  them,  brews  and  seethes  in  them,  forces 
and  distorts  them,  and  seeks  to  lift  the  natural  to 
the  ideal  by  distraction,  by  immensity  and  a  lavish 
splendor  of  forms.  At  this  stage  the  Idea  is  still 
vague  and  formless,  the  natural  objects,  clear- 
formed  and  defined.'' 

Again: 

"  First  the  symbolic:  Here  the  Idea  is  still  seeking 
its  true  artistic  expression  because  it  is  still  abstract 
and  indefinite,  and  lacks  an  appropriate  external 
manifestation.  It  finds  itself  over  against  the 
external  facts  of  nature  and  human  existence.  In 
this  materiality  the  Idea  suspects  its  own  abstractions. 
Or  it  forces  a  concrete  existence  on  its  own  vague 
generalities.  As  a  result  it  spoils  and  falsifies  the 
forms  it  seizes  upon  arbitrarily;  and  there  is  instead  of 
a  full  accord  of  meaning  with  form  the  mere  suggestion 
of  an  external  correspondence.  Both  meaning  and 
form  reveal  in  this  not  completed  and  not  to  be 
completed  fusion  their  mutual  externality  and  in- 
appropria  teness . " 

All  this  amounts  to  saying  that  art  at  a  certain 
stage  lacks  both  a  well-defined,  richly  organized  mean- 
ing and  an  effective  technique.    The  artistic  con- 


128  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

sciousness  is  vague,  not  sure  of  its  purpose,  poor  in 
resources,  blind;  in  its  search  for  self-expression  it 
hits  upon  unpromising  material  and  an  unhappy 
technique.  The  artist  has  not  yet  seized  natural 
expressiveness  to  the  full;  he  takes  simple  forms, 
and,  unable  to  observe  sharply  and  exhaustively 
their  nature,  hangs  on  them  like  a  tag  some  arbitrary 
symbol.  Or  his  imagination,  clumsy  and  formless, 
goes  at  its^  material  with  a  rush,  sets  to  work  to 
fashion  it  knows  not  what,  batters  and  twists  its 
shapes  with  a  confused  and  reckless  extravagance. 
Such  an  arbitrary  symboHsm  and  such  a  headlong, 
ill  controlled  imagination,  Hegel  finds  in  Oriental 
mythology  and  Oriental  art.  The  pyramids,  obe- 
lisks, and  early  forms  of  architecture  reflect  an  art 
spirit  still  bound  to  an  unresponsive  material  and 
still  poor  in  meaning.  Chinese  idols,  much  of 
Hindoo  poetry,  the  pagoda,  of  crude  splendor  and 
extravagant  jointings  and  carvings,  reflect  the  fan- 
\  tastic,  ecstatic,  riotous  spirit  of  symbolic  art. 

The  second  phase  of  art  is  the  classical.  In  it 
Spirit  has  lost  its  early  confused  vagueness,  shaken 
itself  free  of  its  earher  extravagance;  and  with  a 
new  poise  and  a  new  control  over  a  responsive  material 
sets  to  work  to  express  the  spirituality  of  the  purely 
human.  The  artistic  idea  is  limited  in  range,  but  is 
clear  as  crystal;  and  the  beauty  achieved  is  perfect 
within  the  narrow  limits  set.  Hegel  contrasts  the 
crude  animal  worship,  the  fantastic  rites,  the  formless 


HEGEL  129 

theogonies  of  primitive  Greek  religion  with  the  clean- 
cut  images  of  the  gods  and  goddesses  of  Olympus. 
These  Olympians  and  their  lofty,  serene  spirit  of 
humanity  Greek  sculpture  has  made  immortal,  giving 
in  a  perfect  and  infinitely  individualized  form  their 
free  and  individual  life.  Greek  sculptures  of  the  best 
type  are  never  expressionless;  but  so  closely  is  the  ex- 
pression worked  into  the  marble,  so  completely  fused 
with  the  form,  that  it  often  escapes  the  casual  glance; 
so  complete  is  the  spiritual  mastery  over  the  material 
that  the  marble  seems  to  throb  with  life,  and  the  face 
to  light  up  with  a  serene  joyousness  that  knows  neither 
passion  nor  sorrow. 

The  third  period,  or  phase  of  art,  is  the  romantic. 
The  classical  ideal,  perfect  as  it  is,  must  give  way  be- 
fore the  push  and  drive  of  the  Spirit.  As  life  becomes 
more  complex,  more  concrete,  more  significant,  the 
art  consciousness  becomes  fraught  with  aspirations, 
inner  tensions,  and  new  meanings,  and  can  no  longer 
find  itself  or  exhaust  itself  in  the  natural.  In  its 
struggle  for  a  larger,  more  intense  and  more  spiritual 
self-expression  and  self-embodiment  it  shatters  the 
form  which  for  a  time  satisfied  it  so  completely. 
Form  is  rent  asunder;  it  could  no  longer  harbor  the 
eager  and  self-tormented  spirit  that  entered  it.  A  I 
note  of  tragedy  and  struggle  breaks  in  on  the  self-  / 
complacency  of  the  Greek  world.  Sculpture  is  re- 
placed by  music  and  poetry,  the  typically  romantic 
arts,  and  they  in  turn  reflect  the  complex  inwardness, 


4 


i 


130  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

the  intense  conflicts,  and  the  spiritual  reach  of  modem 
life.  There  is  a  blend  of  melancholy  and  hopeful 
vigor  in  this  thought,  for  a  wealth  of  meaning  makes 
up  for  whatever  sacrifice  of  formal  beauty  there  is. 

These  three  phases,  symbolic,  classical,  romantic, 
are  then  traced  in  the  development  of  each  of  the 
several    arts.    Thus    architecture   is    symbolic    in 
pyramid  and  pagoda,  classical  in  the  Greek  temple, 
and  romantic  in  the  Gothic  cathedral.    Or  apply- 
ing Hegel's  two  principles  of  all  development,  an 
\  inner  wealth  and  an  effective  expression  in  responsive 
\  material,  the  arts  might  be  ranked  as  follows:  archi- 
\  tecture,   sculpture,   painting,   music,   poetry.    Run- 
ning  along   this   line,   the  material  becomes  more 
responsive:  marble  and  bronze  give  way  to  pigment, 
and  that  in  turn  yields  to  the  expressive  medium  of 
language.    Parallel  with  this  is  an  inner  development 
in  terms  of  wealth,  concreteness,  ideality.    Archi- 
i      tecture  expressed  a  craving  for  regularity  and  sym- 
metry, for  an  artistic  fashioning  of  the  outer  world 
in  some  of  its  more  immediate  and  simpler  forms. 
Sculpture  gives  the  freedom,  the  individuality,  and 
I  the  surface  spirituality  of  the  human  body.     Painting 
I  reveals  the  soul  through  the  eye  and  the  features, 
and  by  complex  grouping.     Music  gives,  not  separate 
objects,  but  the  flow  and  current  of  the  innermost 

(self  in  its  ideaHty.  Its  realm  is  the  feelings  and 
*'  all   shajdes   of   joy,    merriment,    fun,    caprice,    of 


HEGEL  131 

ecstatic  and  joyous  outbiirats^oi.  soul: .  all  grada- 
tions of  fear,  anxiety,  sorrow,  lamentation,  grief, 
pain^  yearning,  etc.,  and  lastly  awe,  adoration,  love  ^^ 
etc. — these  make  up  the  domain  of  musical  expres- 
sion." It  is  this  that  accounts  for  the  power  of 
music:  it  addresses  itself  directly  to  feeling.  Hegel, 
of  course,  admits  a  mathematical,  structural  side 
to  music;  but  this  tone  structure  of  intervals,  of 
contrasts  and  transitions  in  movement,  this  web 
and  woof  of  rhythm,  is  to  him  significant  only  in  so 
far  as  it  reflects  the  movements  and  transitions 
of  feeling.  It  is  by  reason  of  this  elemental  inward- 
ness that  music  is  the  romantic  art  par  excellence, 
and  one  of  the  freest  of  the  arts.  It  shares  with 
poetry  the  distinction  of  being  the  spokesman  of 
the  modern  spirit.  Of  these  two  arts  of  the  inner 
reahn  Hegel  was  by  gift  and  training  much  more 
fitted  to  appreciate  and  discuss  poetry  than  music; 
and  this  has  at  least  something  to  do  with  his 
judgment  that  poetry  is  the  completest  of  the 
arts,  and  with  the  sketchiness  of  his  theory  of 
music. 

Of  poetry  the  highest  form  is  tragedy.    Nowhere    f 
in  his  aesthetics  is  Hegel's  thought  richer  and  more    | 
resourceful  than  in  his  theory  of  dramatic  poetry. 
In  the  epic  there  is  the  broad  and  naive  portrayal 
of  some   early  social  activity — war,   hunting,   sea- 
faring,  common  work — and  certain  largely  sketched 


f 


132  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

simple  characters  who  are  the  life  that  surrounds 
them.  In  the  lyric  there  is  the  cry  of  the  subjective 
— a  mood,  a  feeling  or  an  emotion.  The  drama 
gives  the  fusion  of  the  objective  and  the  subjective: 
it  shows  characters  that  are  conscious  of  their  pur- 
poses and  aims;  it  shows  their  wills  struggling  with 
other  wills  and  expressing  themselves  in  a  world  of 
action  full  of  opposition  and  reversals  of  fortune. 
Conflict  is  the  heart  of  the  drama;  and  conflict  of 
an  especially  profound  type,  the  heart  of  tragedy. 
None  of  the  ordinary  interpretations  of  the  tragic 
satisfy  Hegel.  It  is  not  a  disastrous  struggle  with 
Fate,  nor  is  it  the  brute  cosmic  sport  hinted  at  by 
Gloster: 

As  flies  to  wanton  boys,  are  we  to  the  gods; 
They  kill  us  for  their  sport. 

It  is  a  necessary  and  not  at  all  depressing  complica-, 
tion  in  the  adventurous  life  of  the  Spirit:  a  Kfe  which 
works  itself  out  dramatically  and  surely  in  us  and  in 
all  nature  other  than  us.  Given  reality  as  a  self- 
expressive  and  seK-expansive  principle,  growing 
ever  more  definite,  masterful,  self -masterful,  and  rich: 
and  tragedy  follows  as  a  matter  of  course.  Spirit, 
or  Geist  expresses  itself  objectively  in  institutions 
such  as  the  family  and  the  state  and  in  the  various 
spheres  of  man's  social  life;  subjectively  in  character. 
Here  lies  the  promise  of  all  manner  of  tragic  colli- 
sions.   As  life  becomes  more  complex  it  seems  arrayed 


HEGEL  133 

against  itself,  for  its  various  activities  and  interests 
tend  to  clash.     Each  of  these,  right  in  its  own  sphere, 
invades  that  of  the  others,  and  asks  the  whole  alle- 
giance of   the  individual;   and  him   this   two-edged 
claim  destroys.    Loyalty   to   the   state   calls  Anti- 
gone, but  so  does  family  piety;    between  the  two 
her  life  is  shattered.    As  character  becomes  more 
complex    and    more    self-assertive    another    set    of 
collisions  appears.     For  Spirit  is  embodied  in  in- 
dividuals in  a  very  partial  and  onesided  way;    and 
because  of   this   large    admixture   of   unreason  life 
seems  in  danger  of  becoming  a  playground  of  caprice- 
Macbeth's    ambition    threatens    to   overwhelm    the 
social  and  moral  order;  unreason  is  at  work  in  Lear's 
anger,    Othello's    chaotic    passion,    and    Hamlet's 
indecision.    Hegel   is    clear-sighted   enough    to    see 
that  the  conflict  need  not  always  be  a  social  one, 
although  the  man  who  rebels  against  society  and  its 
practices    and    ideals    is    a    favorite    tragic    figure. 
There  may  be  a  revolt  against  reason  in  oneself. 
But  in  either  case  the  guilt  and  the  danger  are  felt 
to  lie  in  a  onesidedness  which  is  like  a  blow  struck    » 
at  the  universal.    The  wrecking  of  the  Spirit  seems    I 
imminent   as    the   tragic  hero,   magnificent  in   his   I 
mixture  of  noble  and  base,  good  and  bad,  hastens  | 
along  his  impetuous  career.    The   collision  stands   f ,     i 
revealed:     naked,    sinister,    harrowing.    The    uni-    lSA,.. 
versal  hits  back  and  asserts  itself  at  the  cost  even   / 
of    the   utter   destruction   of    the   individual.     The 


134  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

hero  is  crushed,  but  in  his  defeat  he  feels  something 
of  the  majesty  and  spirituality  of  the  force  that 
crushes  him;  his  Ufe  passes  by  him  like  the  mufHed 
sounds  of  a  riot.  There  lies  the  purification  of  an 
CEdipus  or  an  Othello.  But  what  of  him  who 
sees  the  play?  Is  he  purified  too?  Hegel  is  at 
once  too  wary  and  too  profound  to  saddle  tragedy 
with  any  moral  lessons.  He  refuses  to  take  the 
Aristotelian  theory  of  purification  through  pity 
and  fear  in  either  a  moralistic  or  purely  medicinal 
sense.  To  him  the  pity  which  tragedy  arouses 
in  the  spectator  is  not  a  sentimental  sorrowing  for 
the  individual  as  such;  it  is  a  sympathetic  response 
to  the  nobly  human,  a  chastened  and  saddening 
feeling  that  not  all  that  is  precious  has  been  saved; 
fear  is  not  for  one's  skin  or  for  that  matter  fear  for 
any  one's  skin;  it  is  "  awe,  the  invigorating  revela- 
tion of  spiritual  power  and  of  its  eternal  and  in- 
violable majesty  and  rationality." 

There  is  something  attractive  about  the  large  way 
in  which  Hegel  interprets  the  tragic.  While  this 
somewhat  bourgeois,  elderly  German  confesses  that 
he  would  rather  see  a  Schauspiel,  a  serious  play  with 
a  happy  ending,  than  sup  his  fill  of  blood  and 
horrors,  his  thought  goes  far  beyond  his  likes  and 
dislikes.  Both  the  Artist  and  the  Thinker  in  him 
are  greater  than  the  man.  He  understands  quite 
well  that  the  spiritual  significance  of  life  differs  in 
different  ages;    he  discriminates  finely  between  the 


HEGEL  135 

classical  drama  of  the  Greeks  and  Shakespeare. 
Much  of  modern  tragedy  would  lend  itself  to  his 
theories.  That  Ghosts  is  not  sordid  and  depressing 
it  owes  to  its  outlook  on  the  problem  of  heredity 
and  to  its  conception  of  life  as  a  self-cleansing  proc- 
ess, which,  at  bottom  sound,  discards  the  tainted 
individual  or  the  tainted  generation  slowly  and 
pitilessly.  In  Tolstoy's  Power  of  Darkness,  Mase- 
field's  Tragedy  of  Nan,  Hauptmann's  Sunken  Bell, 
and  MaeterUnck's  Mary  of  Magdala  there  is  a  con- 
structive cosmic  faith,  although  in  each  of  them  a 
different  one.  But  there  is  none  in  Maeterlinck's 
Death  of  Tintagiles  or  in  Strindberg's  The  Father, 
and  yet  they  are  tragic  in  the  truest  sense.  Might 
there  not  be  tragedy  in  an  irrational  world?  Hegel, 
in  spite  of  the  largeness  of  his  view,  seems  to  have 
excluded  one  of  the  most  interesting  uses  of  the 
tragic. 

Every  one  of  Hegel's  aesthetic  theories  is  backed 
by  his  system.  But  what  is  back  of  the  system? 
A  Thinker?  Yes,  but  also  an  Artist.  The  two  can- 
not be  separated.  The  artistic  in  HegeFs  philosophy 
does  not  lie  in  the  details  or  the  style,  although  there 
is  occasionally  plenty  of  warmth  and  color  in  the 
latter;  rather  does  it  lie  in  the  conception  of  his 
system.  He  is  an  artist  largely  by  force  of  his 
imagination,  and  this  in  turn  shows  itself  as  a 
synthetic  sense  of  structure,  as   a   sense  of  the  dra- 


136  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

matic  possibilities  of  logic,  and  as  a  sense  of  divine 
adventure, 

HegeFs  sense  of  structure  is  quite  as  fine  as  Rodin's. 
In  spite  of  its  bold  symbolism  Rodin^s  sculpture 
emphasizes  structure;  it  fits  itself  closely  to  the 
anatomical  expressiveness  of  bodies,  partly  from 
instinct  and  partly  from  study.  Thought  is  to  Hegel 
a  sympathetic  fitting  oneself  to  the  structure  of  things, 
and  as  such  it  is  to  be  thorough  and  impartial. 
Hegel's  theory  of  the  detailed  and  subtle  anatomy  of 
the  state  and  his  theory  of  art  show  this  interpreta- 
tion of  thought.  I  may  be  forgiven  the  qualifying 
term  synthetic  if  I  plead  the  necessity  of  marking  off 
the  artist's  sense  of  structure  from  the  scientist's. 
Rodin's  and  Hegel's  is  synthetic.  Not  only  does 
Rodin  grasp  the  structural  relations  of  his  figures 
and  groups  and  thus  give  the  impression  of  unity, 
but  he  has  some  symbolic  idea  spring  naturally  from 
his  subject,  giving  it  in  this  way  a  world-meaning 
in  terms  of  struggle,  force,  passion  or  any  one  of  many 
like  things.  Hegel  puts  a  constant  emphasis  on  the 
idea  of  organic  unity;  one  sees  his  imagination  on 
the  track  of  a  unity,  a  life  common  to  the  parts, 
whose  sundered  nature  it  has  grasped.  Not  only 
that,  but  each  one  of  these  lesser  unities  is  given  a 
world-meaning — though  quite  unlike  Rodin's — ;  by 
as  elaborate  a  system  of  intellectual  cranes  and 
pulleys  as  man  ever  devised  it  is  swung  into  place  in 
the  Hegelian  edifice  of  relations  and  meanings. 


HEGEL  137 

None  but  an  artist  with  an  imagination  of  high 
rank  could  discover  any  dramatic  possibilities  in 
logic.  Instead  of  an  inventory  of  forms  of  thought, 
Hegel  gives  a  drama  of  complications,  transitions, 
changes  to  the  opposite.  One  feels  thought  defining 
itself,  opposing  itself,  fulfilling  itself.  The  terms  are 
abstract,  the  jargon  disconcerting,  but  back  of  these 
is  a  true  sense  of  the  restless  nature  of  thought  and 
its  tensional,  everchanging  character.  Call  him  a 
juggler  and  an  acrobatic  thinker  if  you  like,  but  don't 
overlook  the  art  that  seizes  upon  the  dramatic  in 
thought  and  exploits  it  as  only  a  genius  could  have 
exploited  it. 

What  of  Hegel's  sense  of  divine  adventure?  That 
beyond  all  else  marks  the  Artist  in  Hegel.  A  sense 
of  the  divine  there  is  in  many  artists;  and  it  appears 
in  many  forms.  It  may  be  the  sense  of  a  crushing 
fate,  as  in  the  early  puppet  plays  of  Maeterlinck, 
or  his  later  confident  way  of  combining  mysticism 
with  a  scientific  faith  in  an  exploration,  step  by  step, 
of  the  circle  of  mystery  which  envelops  like  a  band  of 
darkness  our  system  of  experience  as  well  as  our 
most  casual  experiences;  it  may  be  the  eyes  of  the 
Christ-child  of  the  Sistine  Madonna  or  the  music  of 
Parsifal;  it  may  be  a  bit  of  color  in  a  picture  or  a 
curtain  withdrawn  in  a  lyric  and  a  glimpse  of  an 
infinite.  Many  poets,  sculptors,  and  painters  have  a 
sense  of  the  divine;  few  have  what  Hegel  had,  a 
sense  of  divine  adventure.    Browning  had  it;    so 


138  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

had  Walt  Whitman.  Hegel  gives  a  world-drama, 
in  which  the  divine  is  at  once  the  sufferer,  the  actor, 
and  the  scene.  You  are  asked  to  catch  the  venture- 
someness  of  a  World  Spirit  who  is  the  grime  and  dust 
of  battle  as  well  as  the  victory,  who  casts  himself  off 
in  order  to  regain  himself  after  a  struggle.  There 
is  not  in  Hegel  the  boyish  delight  in  thought-adven- 
ture that  there  is  in  James;  he  lacks  the  extravagance 
of  the  mediae valism  of  the  Romanticists;  he  is  with- 
out the  picturesqueness  of  a  Nietzsche;  his  thought 
is  orderly  in  all  its  transformations.  Beneath  his 
language,  which  is  like  stiffened  draperies,  his  thought 
moves  with  astonishing  enterprise  and  nimbleness. 
One  need  only  contrast  him  with  Maeterlinck  to 
catch  this  dramatic  quaUty.  There  are  in  Maeter- 
linck's essays  two  passages  in  which  he  very  strik- 
ingly visualizes  the  mysterious  and  our  exploring  it. 
In  one  of  these  he  suggests  a  group  of  buildings  such 
as  you  might  find  at  a  fair  or  in  an  amusement  park. 
Seen  from  a  distance  at  night  they  are  meant  to  be 
nothing  but  thin  lines  of  light  against  the  darkness. 
Imagine  these  electric  lights  to  be  switched  on  in 
sets,  and  imagine  delay  somewhere:  there  will  be 
gaps;  the  outlines  will  be  incomplete  until  the  miss- 
ing threads  of  light  appear.  In  our  world-outline 
there  are  just  such  gaps;  they  are  the  mysteries  of 
life;  some  day,  however,  with  the  advance  -^f  science 
light  will  leap  from  point  to  point  and  the  world 
will  be  revealed  in  its  complete,  luminous  reasonable- 


HEGEL  139 

ness.  In  the  other  passage  Maeterlinck  uses  the 
image  of  a  man  who  leaves  his  house  to  explore  what 
is  outside  and  who  finds,  not  a  wilderness,  but  gardens 
and  fruitful  plains  in  which  he  may  wander,  touching 
stealthily  and  lovingly  a  flower,  a  blade  of  grass  or 
an  ear  of  corn.  Both  similes  are  undramatic.  The 
world-meaning  is  there,  complete:  you  are  to  dis- 
cover it;  you  are  there  to  discover  it.  There  is  no 
hint  of  the  bitterness  of  the  struggle,  no  suggestion 
that  you  are  not  yet  you  or  that  the  world-meaning 
itself  is  in  the  making.  But  there  is  all  this  in  Hegel. 
The  world  to  him  is  a  divine  adventure,  and  he  has 
imagined  with  the  insight  of  a  dramatic  poet  the 
complications,  the  surprises,  the  intensity,  and  the 
variety  of  this  adventure. 


VI 

TOLSTOY 

Why,  where  hut  in  the  sense  and  soul  of 
me^  Art's  judge?  — Browning. 

In  1880  Turgenief  on  a  visit  to  Yasnaya  Polyana 
found  Tolstoy  much  changed:  feverishly  at  work 
making  himself  over,  pondering  God  and  the  uni- 
verse. With  this  plunge  into  self -analysis  and  mysti- 
cism he  had  little  sympathy;  he  referred  to  it  with 
indulgent  cynicism  in  a  letter  to  a  friend:  "  Every 
pne  kills  his  fleas  in  his  own  way."  He  feared  a  loss  ' 
to  Russian  literature;  few  appreciated  as  he  did 
Tolstoy's  art,  fine  in  its  characterization,  healthy  in  its 
animalism,  and  of  an  epic  breadth.  Was  this  "  great 
writer  of  our  Russian  land ''  to  turn  ascetic  and 
moralist?  Three  years  later  Turgenief  sent  from 
what  proved  to  be  his  death-bed  an  appeal  to  Tolstoy  ^ 
not  to  forsake  literature. 

The  appeal  went  unheeded.  Tolstoy  uncere- 
moniously bowed  himself  off  the  stage  of  art  and 
definitely  became  a  critic  of  life  and  a  social  reformer. 
Never  afterward  did  his  work  escape  the  cramping 
coils  of  moral  purpose.    He  wrote  simple  stories  for 

140 


I 


TOLSTOY  141 

the  peasants,  philosophical  essays,  pamphlets  and 
manifestoes  on  questions  of  the  day:  all  of  them 
very  sincere;  some  of  them  very  true;  none  of  them 
from  an  artistic  point  of  view  worthy  of  his  earlier 
work.  Even  when  he  turns  to  the  novel,  as  he  did 
in  Resurrection,  good  material  is  washed  bare  of 
artistic  possibilities  by  top  strong  a  moral  corrosive. 
There  are  many  who  deplore  this  change — this 
bending  to  the  moral  yoke — and  look  with  a  great 
deal  of  distrust  on  the  great  crisis  in  Tolstoy's  life. 
Conversion,  they  hold,  may  possibly  be  good  for  the 
man,  but  assuredly  is  fatal  to  the  artist.  A  distorted 
view  of  life,  they  say,  has  reacted  unfavorably 
on'^olstoy's  art  and  view  of  art.  It  is  easy  to  see 
some  grounds  for  such  criticism;  if  a  theory  is  no 
stronger  than  its  weakest  dictum  or  application, 
little  can  be  said  in  favor  of  Tolstoy's  political, 
moral,  and  aesthetic  theories;  and  least  of  all  can  be 
said  in  favor  of  his  views  on  art.  What  can  be 
held  of  a  man  who  regards  King  Lear  as  a  mere 
clutter  of  improbabilities  and  denies  Shakespeare 
grasp,  sense  of  measure,  and  true  characterization; 
"of  one  who  rejects  Dante  and  Michael  Angelo  non- 
chalantly, and  shows  as  little  understanding  of  the 
trenchant  intellectualism  of  Ibsen  as  he  does  of  the 
elusive  art  of  Maeterlinck  or  Baudelaire  and  the 
rich  art  of  Boecklin,  Beethoven,  and  Wagner? 
These  erratic  views  are  expressed  in  two  essays: 
What  is  Art?  published  in  1898,  and  Shakespeare, 


142  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

in  1906.  They  cannot  be  set  to  the  score  of  old  age, 
for  nothing  could  be  more  virile  than  Tolstoy  at 
eighty;  besides,  letters,  diaries,  reminiscences  prove 
that  many  of  them  extend  back  to  ripe  manhood. 
For  years  Tolstoy  tried  to  force  Shakespeare  on 
himseK,  always  without  success.  "  I  invariably 
underwent  the  same  feelings:  repulsion,  weariness, 
and  bewilderment.''  It  would  be  quite  as  unfair 
to  set  aside  because  of  them  Tolstoy's  whole  theory 
of  art,  and  to  ask:  Why  consider  a  blind  man's 
theory  of  color?  To  deny  that  a  great  artist  like 
Tolstoy  has  some  understanding  at  least  of  the 
essentials  of  beauty,  is  too  much  like  going  at  things 
with  a  scoop.  Limited  in  range  his  feeling  for 
art  certainly  is,  for  he  could  not  enjoy  verse  and  its 
music,  and  so  misjudged  the  Symbolists  utterly. 
When  he  tests  King  Lear  by  means  of  retelhng  the 
plot  in  the  baldest  possible  prose,  he  overlooks  the 
meaning  of  poetic  pitch  of  character  and  incident. 
Highly  complex  forms  of  art  he  could  not  appre- 
ciate, but  within  this  range  and  its  racial,  personal 
and  cultural  limits  his  appreciation  of  art  is  genuine 
and  in  the  main  convincing  and  sound;  and  what 
is  true  of  his  art  holds  also  of  his  judgment  of  art: 
it  is  truest  when  nearest  the  soil.  That  is  why  he 
has  such  a  fine  feeling  for  Homer  and  for  the  rich, 
earthy  art  of  folk-song  and  folk-epic.  Nor  is  it 
safe  to  regard  the  crisis  for  which  My  Confession 
stands  as  a  sudden  wrenching  free  which  ever  after 


TOLSTOY  143 

left  a  moral  twist.  Some  influence  must  be  ad- 
mitted; some  warping  of  judgment  and  some  es- 
trangement from  the  artistic  as  such.  But,  after 
all,  Tolstoy's  art,  at  its  earliest  and  even  at  its 
best,  has  a  moral  strain  to  it.  The  problem  of  the 
reshaping  of  character  is  not  peculiar  to  Resurrec- 
tion; it  appears  in  Anna  Karenina  and^  still  earlier 
in  terse  and  virile  form  in  The  Cossacks;  the.  q]yie§-, 
tion  of  the  meaning  of  life,  which  Tolstoy  came 
to  use  as  the  test  of  art,  haunts  Besuchoff  in  War 
and  Peace  and  Levin  in  Anna  Karenina^  and  fig- 
ures prominently  as  far  back  as  1852  in  the  un- 
finished novel  Youth.  In  view  of  this  it  is  absurd 
to  say  that  Tolstoy's  attitude  toward  art  at  some 
definite  time  came  within  the  deep  shadow  of  a 
moral  eclipse. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  seems  to  be  this:  Back 
of  Tolstoy's  art  criticisms  is  a  definite  and  thought- 
ful theory  of  art  and  its  relation  to  life,  a  th-eory 
worked  out  gradually  and  unevenly.  Erratic  as  it 
is,  it  is  much  stronger  than  its  weakest  link.  True 
or  false,  it  is  at  least  vital;  partly  because  it  is  him- 
self— his  personality  caught  in  one  of  its  sincerest 
expressive  movements — and  reflects  the  directness, 
massiveness,  and  liveness  of  his  interests;  partly 
because  it  comes  from  a  creative  genius;  partly 
because  it  is  a  cultural  theory  of  art:  a  peculiarly 
earnest  attempt  to  connect  art  with  life  and  to  see  the 
values  of  art  in  relation  to  whatever  else  of  value  a 


144  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

fixed  will  and  a  hungry  imagination  can  snatch 
from  life.  *  It  is  therefore  entitled  to  a  hearing. 

Tolstoy's  essay  on  Guy  de  Maupassant,  written 
in  1894,  gives  interesting  matter.  We  are  told  that 
in  1 88 1  Turgenief  brought  him  the  Maison  Tellier 
collection  of  stories.  It  was  an  ill-chosen  moment. 
"  That  particular  period,  the  year  1881,  was  for  me 
the  fiercest  time  of  the  inner  reconstruction  of  my 
whole  understanding  of  life,  and  in  this  recon- 
struction those  employments  called  the  Fine  Arts, 
to  which  I  had  formerly  given  all  my  power,  had  not 
only  lost  all  their  former  importance  in  my  eyes, 
but  had  become  altogether  obnoxious  to  me  owing 
to  the  unnatural  position  they  had  hitherto  occupied 
in  my  life,  and  which  they  generally  occupy  in  the 
estimation  of  people  of  the  wealthy  classes."  Mau- 
passant did  not  escape  this  general  disfavor.  His 
workmanship  was  admired,  but  much  of  his  mate- 
rial found  repellent,  and  his  attitude  towards  life, 
ill-defined.  Later  when  he  came  back  to  Maupassant 
and  read  Une  Vie  his  estimate  changed.  Here 
he  saw  what  he  had  thought  lacking  and  what  he 
was  fast  coming  to  regard  as  the  essential  of  good 
art.  The  essay  reflects  this  juster  estirnate,  and 
in  it  are  to  be  found  Tolstoy's  four  tests  of  good 
art. 

The  first  of  these  four  art  tests  is  ^nius^  that  is, 
*^  the  faculty  of  intense,  strenuous  attention,  applied 
according   to   the   author's   tastes   to   this   or   that 


TOLSTOY  145 

subject;  and  by  means  of  which  the  possessor  of 
this  capacity  sees  the  things  to  which  he  applies 
his  attention  in  some  new  aspect  overlooked  by 
others."  There  must,  in  short,  be  a  close  and 
fresh  view  of  things.  Again,  there  must  be  beauty 
of  expression.  The  third  quality  demanded  i^^n- 
ceftiy:  an  earnestness  burnt  into  its  material.  The 
■fonifffi  is  '^  a  correct,  that  is,  moral  relation  of  the 
author  to  his  subject  J  ^  All  these  he  finds  in  most  of 
Maupassant's  work. 

These  four  tests,  with  the  emphasis  thrown  sharply 
on  the  fourth,  give  the  key  to  Tolstoy's  theory  of 
art,  but  only  if  they  are  understood  in  their  psy- 
chological sources  and  in  the  drift  of  their  logic.  With 
the  first  three  this  is  a  simple  matter,  for  it  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  and  to  justify  genius,  sincerity, 
and  clearness  and  beauty  of  expression  as  tests  of 
good  art.  Nor  is  the  problem  of  source  difficult: 
they  reflect  much  in  Tolstoy's  character  and  are 
in  turn  reflected  in  his  art.  Nothing  could  be  more 
earnest,  surer  in  touch  and  bolder  in  design  than 
some  of  his  character  studies;  in  his  descriptions 
no  detail  is  too  minute  for  a  sharp,  searching,  vitaliz- 
ing imagination.  The  snowstorm  in  Master  and 
Servant  is  wonderfully  true;  so  are  the  descriptions 
of  dumb  animals,  the  battle  canvases  and  gambling 
scenes  in  War  and  Peace.  Nothing  escapes  him: 
he  is  equally  at  home  in  the  hot  life  of  the  steppes 
and  in  the  jaded  life  of  the  salon.    He  catches  with 


146  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

\  photographic  accuracy  the  homely  doings  of  peasant 
life  and  the  unobtrusive  panorama  of  nature — soil, 
wind,  and  weather.  As  for  the  source  from  which 
these  three  demands  spring,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
quaUty  of  directness  which  marks  Tolstoy  the 
man  above  all  else.  The  desire  to  live  earnestly  and 
to  see  clearly  was  with  him  almost  an  obsession; 
so  downright  and  energetic  is  he  in  his  search  that 
'^  he  often  fails  to  judge  cautiously  and  sanely;  reveal- 
ing a  most  perplexing  blend  of  idealist  and  straight, 
none  too  subtle,  common-sense  thinker;  and  yet 
this  directness  in  its  good  variants  marks  what  is 
best  in  his  art,  in  shaping  his  studies  of  peasant 
character,  for  instance. 

The  fourth  art  test  is,  however,  the  one  most  heavily 
staked.  An  author  is  to  have  *'  a  correct,  that  is, 
moral  relation ''  to  his  subject.  Two  questions 
immediately  shake  themselves  free:  What  is  meant 
by  a  right,  or  moral  relation?  What  is  considered 
a  right,  or  moral  relation? 

As  to  the  first  question,  one  set  of  clues  is  given 
by  the  essay  itself.  Maupassant's  short  stories  are 
praised  because  they  bring  out  so  sharply  the  awful 
disillusionment  of  animal  love.  This  might  suggest 
moralizing  and  a  "  wages  of  sin  "  idea.  Nothing  is 
more  congenial  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  more  distaste- 
ful to  the  Frenchman.  It  would  be  idle  to  deny  that 
Tolstoy  often  moralizes  in  just  this  way,  in  his  later 
short  stories  especially.    It  is  the  peasant's  greed  or 


TOLSTOY  .  147 

his  shiftlessness  and  love  of  vodka  that  is  the  dis- 
tressingly obvious  moral  lesson  of  such  tales  as  How 
much  Land  does  a  Man  Require?  and  How  the  Little 
Devil  Atoned  for  the  Crust  of  Bread.  But  here  Tolstoy 
has  something  else  in  mind.  ^^  An  artist  is  only  an 
artist  because  he  sees  things  not  as  he  wishes  to  see 
them,  but  as  they  are."  That  is  the  voice  of  the 
great  reaHst  who  by  the  mere  relentless  handling  of 
cause  "^aiiS^'^ect  giv'es  the  shattering  of  Anna  Kare- 
nina's  life  impressively  and  objectively  with  no 
attempt  at  moralizing.  What  Tolstoy  means  is 
fhaf  art  must  be  rooted  in  a  Weltanschauung,  a  life 
attitude,  and  that  this,  and  not  character  or  plot,  is 
the  true  principle  of  unity  in  a  novel  or  a  play.  Life 
is  thought  to  have  an  inherent  moral  quality;  this 
the  true  artist  is  to  give  intensely  and  objectively. 
If  he  takes  life  piecemeal  his  art  becomes  false  and 
insignificant.  Just  as  there  is  one  position  from 
which  an  object  of  sense  yields  itself  most  fully,  so 
tnere  is  one  point  of  view  from  which  life  is  held  to 
disclose  its  meaning.  So  we  are  to  ask  the  artist: 
^^  From  what  standpoint  will  you  illumine  life  for 
me?  "  Discussing  a  young  Russian  writer  of  great 
promise,  Tolstoy  said  that  while  he  admired  the 
artistic  quality  of  his  work  he  failed  to  find  in  it  a 
definite  philosophy  of  life. 

True  art  then  must  give  a  clear,  undistorted  reflec- 
tion of  life  and  its  meaning.  An  artist  must  first  of 
all  understand  life  in  all  its  elemental  force  and  in  all 


148  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

its  puzzling  reaches.  All  this  might  be  mere  phrase 
or  pose;  and  there  are  many  with  whom  philosophy 
is  either  or  both.  Not  so  with  Tolstoy,  for  with  him 
the  problem  of  life  is  an  urgent,  pressing  one;  it 
is  the  very  hunger  of  his  existence.  He  comes  back 
to  it  again  and  again;  his  letters  and  diaries  are 
full  of  self-analysis,  confessions,  self-damnings. 
Curiously  intent  on  living  earnestly  and  seeing 
clearly,  he  jots  down  his  master  faults,  maps  out 
studies  and  methods  of  discipline,  launches  and 
questions  all  manner  of  thoughts;  and  all  this  with 
little  or  no  trace  of  the  morbid,  and  in  the  midst 
of  much  riotous  living.  But  life  for  many  years 
proved  too  sweet  in  the  living  for  more  than  mere 
f oreshadowings  of  that  great  spiritual  crisis  of  which 
My  Confession  gives  so  intense  and  sincere  an  ac- 
count. No  one  who  fails  to  see  the  significance  of 
that  crisis  can  understand  the  high  seriousness  of 
his  view  of  art.  Tolstoy  was  in  his  forties,  in  good 
health,  happily  married,  a  successful  writer,  successful 
in  the  experiments  in  peasant  schooling  he  had  tried 
on  his  estates,  when  the  craving  for  a  rational  view 
of  life  caught  him  full  sweep  and  drove  him  to  the 
very  edge  of  despair. 

"  My  life  had  come  to  a  sudden  stop.  I  was  able 
to  breathe,  to  eat,  to  drink,  to  sleep.  I  could  not, 
indeed,  help  doing  so;  but  there  was  no  real  Hfe  in 
me.  I  had  not  a  single  wish  to  strive  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  what  I  could  feel  to  be  reasonable.     If 


TOLSTOY  149 

I  Wished  for  anything,  I  knew  beforehand  that,  were 
I  to  satisfy  the  wish,  nothing  would  come  of  it;  I 
should  still  be  dissatisfied.'' 

"  I  knew  not  what  I  wanted,  I  was  afraid  of  life; 
I  shrank  from  it,  and  yet  there  was  something  I 
hoped  for  from  it. 

"  Such  was  the  condition  I  had  come  to,  at  a  time 
when  all  the  conditions  of  my  life  were  preeminently 
happy  ones,  and  when  I  had  not  reached  my  fiftieth 
year  .  .  .  Moreover  my  mind  was  neither  deranged 
nor  weakened;  on  the  contrary,  I  enjoyed  a  mental 
and  physical  strength  which  I  have  seldom  found  in 
men  of  my  class  and  pursuits:  I  could  keep  up  with  a 
peasant  in  mowing,  and  could  continue  mental  labor 
for  ten  hours  at  a  stretch  without  any  evil  con- 
sequences." 

All  this  doubt  and  this  anguish,  as  of  a  man  starv- 
ing, crystallize  about  the  question:  Is  Life  "  an  evil 
and  absurdity  "?  which  is  the  problem  of  My  Con- 
fession, Curiously  enough  it  at  first  takes  on  a  self- 
ish cast.  "  What  am  I  with  all  my  desires?  "  Why 
set  mind  to  purpose  or  hand  to  work  when  the  out- 
come must  be  decay  and  death?  Tolstoy,  to  whom 
by  temperament  the  aspect  of  death  was  horrible, 
had  come  to  feel  that  the  thought  of  this  fleetingness 
and  decay  would  embitter  every  joy  and  cripple  every 
aim.  "  I,  like  Sakya  Muni,  could  not  drive  to  the 
pleasure  ground  when  I  knew  of  the  existence  of  old 
age,  suffering  and  death."  It  is  the  world  old  cry 
of  anguish  in  the  presence  of  change  and  of  death, 


150  ARTISTS  AND  THINKESS 

the  great  denier.  But  another  question  appears  in 
a  passage  like  the  following:  '^  Why  do  I  live? — The 
question  was,  why  should  I  Hve,  i.e.,  what  of  real 
and  imperishable  will  come  of  my  shadowy  and  perish- 
able life — what  meaning  has  my  finite  existence  in  the 
infinite  universe?  "  Nothing  could  be  sharper  than 
the  contrast  between  this  question  and  the  one 
originally  asked:  that  was  a  problem  of  satisfaction; 
this  is  one  of  service.  In  the  one  I  ask  life  to  justify 
itself  to  me;  in  the  other  I  ask  of  myself  a  justifica- 
tion at  the  bar  of  life;  in  the  first  I  assume  that  Hfe 
ought  to  be  sweet  to  the  taste  and  am  routed  in  the 
midst  of  my  pleasures  by  the  death's  head  of  change 
and  decay  at  the  banquet;  in  the  second  I  challenge 
this  assumption  and  think  of  life,  not  as  an  invitation 
to  enjoy,  but  as  a  demand  to  work.  The  first  prob- 
lem does  not  hold  Tolstoy,  he  pushes  on  to  the  second. 
Assume  that  satisfaction  of  desires  defines  the  mean- 
ing of  life,  and  you  are  caught  in  the  swirl  of  unreason, 
but  the  unreason  isln  you,  not  in  life.  You  have  put 
things  wrongly.  Is  Hfe  devoid  of  reason  because  it 
rejects  an  irrational  demand?  In  this  way  Tolstoy 
by  shifting  the  emphasis  forces  the  prospect  of  a 
solution  of  the  problem  of  Hfe.  Life  seems  too  large 
and  sane  to  be  cast  aside  on  account  of  the  disap- 
pointed pleasure-seeker's  despair;  thousands  seem 
to  find  a  meaning  in  it;  they  seem  to  live  strongly, 
clearly,  happily;  their  point  of  view  seems  vital; 
their  faith,  sustaining.    Why  then  not  turn  to  this 


TOLSTOY  151 

simple,  strong  life  of  the  masses  for  guidance?    This 
Tolstoy  did  resolutely. 

*'  I  renounced  the  life  of  my  class,  for  I  had  come 
to  confess  that  it  was  not  a  real  life,  only  the  semblance 
of  one;  that  its  superfluous  luxury  prevented  the 
possibility  of  understanding  life,  and  that  in  order 
to  do  so  I  must  know,  not  an  exceptional  parasitic 
life,  but  the  simple  life  of  the  working  classes,  the  life 
which  fashions  that  of  the  world,  and  gives  it  the 
meaning  which  the  working  classes  accept.  The 
simple  laboring  men  around  me  were  the  Russian 
people,  and  I  turned  to  this  people  and  to  the  mean- 
ing which  it  gives  to  life.'' 

The  message  Tolstoy  gets  from  the  masses  is  that 
the  only  rational  Hfe  is  a  life  of  faith,  work,  self- 
denial,  humility,  kindliness,  and  charity.  The  mean- 
ing of  life  is  found  in  social  service  and  in  an  ideal  of 
self-culture  built  about  energetic  self-discipline  and 
sincere  religious  aspiration. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  Tolstoy  studies  and 
condemns  modern  culture,  and  develops  a  cultural  - 
theory  of  art.  His  criticisms  on  modern  art  must 
be  viewed  in  the  light  of  his  attitude  toward  modern 
culture."  Our  culture,  to  his  way  of  thinking,  wrongly 
assumes  enjoyment  to  be  the  meaning  of  life,  and 
exhausts  itself  in  the  pursuit  of  material  comfort, 
in  a  restless  craving  for  luxury  and  the  sources  of 
pleasure.    Pessimism  and  mal  de  vie  are  too  often 


152  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

only  the  expression  of  pleasure-seeking  thwarted  or 
gone  wrong.  Again,  modern  culture  is  exclusive. 
It  is  built  on  the  slavery  of  the  masses,  and  exacts 
heavy  sacrifices  in  time,  labor,  and  suffering  of  the 
many  for  the  benefit  of  the  few.  Why,  asks  Tolstoy, 
should  they  that  are  nearest  to  life  and  an  under- 
standing of  it,  they  to  whom  Kfe  is  not  a  plaything 
or  a  morsel  for  the  senses,  but  something  concrete, 
earnest,  vital,  of  social  purpose — why  should  they  be 
sacrificed  in  order  to  strengthen  the  pleasure-seeker  in 
his  wrong  position?  Why  should  there  be  this  de- 
plorable sacrifice  of  life  and  character?  "  But  how 
wonderfully  blind  we  become  as  soon  as  the  question 
concerns  those  millions  of  workers  who  perish  slowly 
and  often  painfully,  all  around  us,  at  labors  the  fruits 
of  which  we  use  for  our  convenience  and  pleasure!" 

Modern  art  Tolstoy  considers  no  less  wasteful  and 
exclusive  than  modern  culture.  It  is  selfish,  exclusive, 
and  costly.  It  exacts  the  toll  of  work  from  the  many 
and  yields  pleasure  and  profit  to  the  few.  In  its 
complex  forms,  grand  opera,  for  instance,  it  is  accessi- 
ble to  few,  intelligible  to  fewer  still,  and  costly  out  of 
all  proportion  to  its  value.  There  is  much  crude  fun 
and  not  a  little  malice  in  Tolstoy's  description  of  a 
grand  opera  dress  rehearsal  at  St.  Petersburg.  This 
wastefulness  of  modern  art  is  tragic  because  the 
drudges  of  art,  the  printer,  the  stagehand,  the 
musician,  caught  in  a  deadening  routine,  get  nothing 
of  the  glamour  of  art,  and  because  there  is  such  a 


TOLSTOY  153 

favoring  of  soft-living  artists  at  the  expense  of  really 
useful  material.  The  drudge,  the  artist  and  the  art 
patron  alike  miss  the  true  meaning  of  life:  the  first 
because  he  is  a  drudge,  the  others  because  they  are 
pleasure-seekers.  Here  lies  the  root  of  the  evil:  art 
instead  of  being  a  cultural  force  is  becoming  an  in- 
strument of  pleasure  in  the  hands  of  the  moneyed  and 
leisured  classes.  Small  wonder  then  that  it  revels  in 
a  complex  technique,  loses  itself  in  symbolism  and 
cryptics,  and  glorifies  passions  and  impulses  over 
which  the  common  man  shakes  a  puzzled  head. 
Ingenuity  is  gained,  for  what  could  be  more  ingenious 
than  the  court  pastoral,  the  sonnet,  the  ode,  the 
symphony?  But  it  is  gained  at  the  expense  of  force 
and  breadth.  At  its  worst  this  exclusive  art,  always 
within  easy  reach  of  the  decadent,  expresses  the 
abnormalities  of  a  mind  out  of  focus;  at  its  best  it 
reflects  shallow  class  ideals  and  surface  vanities. 
These  class  ideals  are:  sense  of  honor,  or  pride, 
blatant  patriotism,  and  amorousness.  They  are 
parasitical  developments  of  fife  and  lack  the  vigor, 
freshness,  and  massive  pressure  of  the  elemental.  To 
Tolstoy  with  his  intense  hunger  of  life  such  ideals 
seemed  vapid.  He  caught  at  the  life  of  the  peasant — 
in  his  work  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  in  his  talks  and 
comradeships  of  the  open  road,  in  his  pilgrimages  to 
Op  tin  monastery;  in  such  a  hfe  close  to  the  soil  he 
thought  he  detected  an  unmatched  strength  and 
intensity,  spiritual  and  artistic.     In  peasant  life  he 


154  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

saw  at  least  the  promise  of  a  wisdom  that  is  not  mere 
cleverness,  and  an  art  that  is  not  a  mere  toying  with 
sounds,  colors,  and  feelings. 

This  line  of  reasoning  might  suggest  an  onslaught 
on  art  as  such,  but  that  is  certainly  not  Tolstoy's 
purpose.  He  is  not  to  be  ranked  as  an  enemy  of 
art;  he  is  not  a  scoffer,  but  a  critic;  a  critic  whose 
concern  for  true  art  gives  the  sharpest  possible  edge 
to  his  attack  on  what  he  considers  bad  art.  To  him 
true  art  is  a  cultural  force  of  immense  importance, 
but  easily  sent  astray — made,  as  in  the  mass  of  modern 
art,  to  serve  a  false  ideal  of  life,  and  selfish,  exclusive, 
costly  interests. 

What  then  is  true  art,  art  not  culturally  perverted? 
"  Art  is  one  of  two  organs  of  human  progress.  By 
words  man  interchanges  thoughts,  by  the  forms  of 
art  he  interchanges  feelings,  and  this  with  all  men, 
not  only  of  the  present  time,  but  also  of  the  past  and 
the  future  ...  To  evoke  in  oneself  a  feeling  one 
has  once  experienced,  and,  having  evoked  it  in  one- 
self, then,  by  means  of  movements,  Unes,  colors, 
sounds,  or  forms  expressed  in  words,  so  to  transmit 
that  feeling  that  others  may  experience  the  same 
feeling — this  is  the  activity  of  art.  Art  is  a  human 
activity  consisting  in  this,  that  one  man  consciously 
by  means  of  certain  external  signs  hands  on  to  others 
feelings  he  has  lived  through,  and  that  other  people 
are  infected  by  these  feelings  and  also  experience 
-— ^hem."     Such  passages  prove  that  Tolstoy  regards 


TOLSTOY  155 

art  as  self-expression,  and  essentially  transference  of 
feelings.  It  is  here  that  he  gets  his  test  of  true  art: 
the  excellence  of  any  work  of  art  depends,  first,  on 
whether  or  not  it  conveys  feelings  effectively,  second, 

Lon  the  worth  of  the  feelings  conveyed. 
The  contagiousness  of  art  in  turn  depends  on  three 
things:  the  novelty  and  originality  of  the  feeling, 
the  clearness  with  which  it  is  expressed,  and  the 
sincerity  of  the  author.  Good  art  must  be  strikingy 
luminous,  and  convincing.  Thus  in  the  technique  of 
the  drama'  Tolstoy  demands  "  a  true  individuality 
of  language,  corresponding  to  the  characters;  a 
natural,  and  at  the  same  time  touching  plot;  a  cor- 
rect scenic  rendering  of  the  demonstration  and 
development  of  emotion;  and  the  feeling  of  measure 
in  air  that  is  represented."  Of  the  three  essentials  of 
transference  of  feelings  sincerity  is  the  most  impor- 
tant. "  It  is  always  complied  with  in  peasant  art, 
and  this  explains  why  such  art  always  acts  so  power- 
fully;;  but  it  is  a  condition  almost  entirely  absent  from 
our  upper-class  art,  which  is  continually  produced 
by  artists  actuated  by  personal  aims  of  covetousness 
and  vanity." 

Passing  to  the  second  test  of  good  art:  how  are 
we  to  judge  of  the  worth  of  the  feelings  conveyed? 
At  any  particular  stage  of  social  development  there 
is  a  certain  amount  of  religious  perception  and  feeling. 
Art  draws  on  this,  and  good  art  draws  on  it  most 
fully.    The  religious  consciousness  of  any  given  time 


156  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

is  the  judge  of  the  worth  of  the  feelings  conveyed — 
it  is  this  startling  assertion  that  Tolstoy's  thought 
arrives  at.  But  he  interprets  religious  consciousness 
as  "an  understanding  defining  the  highest  good 
at  which  that  society  aims;  it  is  nothing  else  than 
the  revealing  of  a  new  creative  relation  of  man  to  the 
universe."  This  earnest  and  penetrative  wisdom  is 
strong  in  the  choice  spirits  of  an  age,  and  at  work  in 
the  life  of  the  masses.  Life  is  freshened  by  this 
source  of  new,  forceful,  and  communicable  feelings, 
and  art  is  the  gainer,  for  there  is  "  nothing  so  old  and 
stale  as  gratification  "  and  "  nothing  so  new  as  the 
feelings  which  flow  into  the  religious  consciousness 
of  a  given  time."  Hebrew  and  Greek  art  are  cited 
to  point  the  argument.  While  false  art  is  continually 
impoverishing  itself,  true  art  draws  on  the  richest 
possible  soil.  Tolstoy  in  this  way  connects  the  tests 
of  novelty,  clearness,  and  sincerity  with  that  of  worth 
of  content. 

Tolstoy  is  quite  aware  that  religious  feeling  and 
perception  are  different  in  different  ages,  and  that  in 
order  to  judge  of  the  worth  of  present-day  art  it 
becomes  necessary  to  get  the  tone  and  temper  of  the 
present-day  religious  consciousness.  This,  Tolstoy 
holds,  is  summed  up  in  two  things:  sonship  in  God 
and  brotherhood  of  men.  "The  religious  consciousness 
of  our  times,  in  its  widest  and  most  practical  appKca- 
tion,  is  the  consciousness  that  our  well-being,  material 
and  spiritual,  temporal  and  eternal,  is  included  in 


TOLSTOY  157 

the  brotherly  life  of  all  people,  in  our  living  union 
with  each  other.'' 

Stripped  of  all  church  ceremonial  and  theology, 
Christianity  is  for  Tolstoy  nothing  but  a  very  simple 
but  immeasurably  strong  combination  of  the  ideas: 
sonship  in  God  and  brotherhood  of  men.  They  in 
turn  are  the  great  fresheners  and  sustainers  of  what 
is  best  in  modern  art.  If  art  is  directly  religious, 
giving  what  is  best  in  religious  perception  and  giving 
it  simply  and  convincingly,  it  is  of  the  very  best;  if  it 
turns  against  anti-social  feelings,  it  is  on  a  slightly 
lower  plane;  if  it  expresses  certain  simple,  fundamen- 
tal feelings,  such  as  gaiety,  tenderness,  grief,  it  is 
still,  though  indirectly,  religious  art,  for  it  fosters  the 
sense  of  human  kinship.  Tolstoy  with  an  honest 
avowal  of  fallibility  classes  among  good  art:  Millet's 
Angelus,  the  novels  of  Dickens,  Victor  Hugo,  Dos- 
toevsky,  Mozart,  Weber,  and  part  of  Chopin  and 
Beethoven — and  folk-poetry.  His  own  art  he  con- 
demns with  the  exception  of  two  stories:  God  Sees  the 
Truth  and  The  Caucasian  Prisoner. 

Such,  for  good  or  ill,  is  Tolstoy's  theory  of  art.  In 
its  results  it  is  beyond  a  doubt  disappointing  in  a 
great  many  ways.  Its  heresies  and  gross  lapses  of 
insight  stand  out,  but  in  and  of  themselves  they  would 
not  be  strong  enough  to  condemn  it.  The  fault  lies 
deeper:  it  is  Tolstoy's  onesided,  narrow  interpretation 
of  culture  that  spoils  his  theory  of  art.  Any  theory 
of  art  as  frankly  cultural  as  Tolstoy's  is  made  or 


158  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

marred  by  the  conception  of  culture  that  carries  it;  a 
flaw  in  that  counts  tenfold  against  it.  Here  is  where 
Tolstoy  is  weakest,  for  as  a  social  thinker  he  often 
lays  himself  open  to  the  charge  of  being  crude,  rash, 
and  narrow;  he  turns  to  large  problems,  looks  at 
them  intently,  impatiently,  but  not  always  largely. 
One  searches  in  vain  for  sound  judgment  of  essentials 
and  for  a  finely  discriminative  strain  of  thought: 
fitful  flashes  of  truth  in  a  Cimmerian  darkness,  that 
is  all  there  is,  instead  of  an  even,  luminous  flooding 
of  social  problems.  He  demands  that  life  swing  back 
to  simple  archaic  forms  and  that  art  express  the 
strength,  the  directness,  the  simpKcity  of  this  genuine 
culture — which  amounts  to  casting  aside  intellectual 
achievements  and  forcing  art  to  move  within  the  con- 
fines of  peasant  thought  and  peasant  feeling.  There 
lies  the  damning  fact,  in  this  stultification  of  art,  in 
the  failure  to  see  that  art  as  well  as  life  is  constantly 
becoming  a  richer  and  a  more  subtle  thing,  and  that 
with  its  ever  increasing  range  of  expressiveness  it 
must  find  a  place  for  the  subjective,  the  complex,  the 
elusive,  the  abnormal.  It  is  all  the  richer  for  a 
Maeterlinck  or  a  Baudelaire.  Over  against  a  fresh, 
simple,  strong  peasant  art  Tolstoy  sets  the  danger 
of  pose,  affectation,  and  sickening  self -exploitation; 
he  has  no  eye  for  other  possibilities.  Peasant  life 
may  be  simple  and  strong,  but  it  is  often  dull  or  gross, 
and  popular  art  often  shares  this  dulness  or  gross- 
ness;    Tolstoy  himself  became  the  victim  of  that 


TOLSTOY  159 

dulness  when  on  reading  one  of  the  most  touching 
scenes  of  his  The  Power  of  Darkness,  a  play  based 
incident  for  incident  on  an  actual  criminal  case  among 
peasants,  to  a  group  of  peasants,  he  was  greeted  with 
unexpected  laughter.  Again,  artistic  finesse  need 
not  mean  a  mannered  or  a  sickish  art. 

But  if  Tolstoy's  theory  of  art  is  disappointing  in 
results,  it  is  not  disappointing  as  a  problem.  All 
sorts  of  questions  spread  from  it  like  a  fan.  Does  the 
Thinker  crowd  out  the  Maker?  Can  the  philosoph- 
ical impulse  develop  only  at  the  expense  of  the  artistic? 
Or  if  there  is  war  between  the  two,  is  it  not  rather  the 
direction  taken  by  either  that  is  responsible?  That 
in  Tolstoy  the  moral  interest  seriously  endangered  his 
art  and  his  interest  in  art  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
The  philosophical  tinge  to  his  earlier  work  deepened 
to  the  problem.  How  ought  I  to  live?  What  is  the 
meaning  of  Hfe?  Questions  like  these  ought  to  be  an 
artistic  asset;  they  ough  to  make  art  richer,  niore 
searching — and  they  do  it  in  Hardy,  in  Anatole 
France,  in  Gorky.  What  of  Jude  the  Obscure  and 
The  Gods  are  A  thirst?  No  one  has  seen  more  sharply 
than  Gorky  the  tragedy  of  a  soul  lost  in  the  tumult 
and  social  unreason  of  modern  life.  His  characters, 
hungry  for  life  and  an  understanding  of  it,  but 
crippled,  entangle  themselves  in  their  own  thoughts 
and  purposes  or  else  face  life  with  the  dumb  agony 
of  an  animal  at  bay.  If  in  Hardy,  Anatole  France, 
and  Gorky,  why  not  in  Tolstoy?    Is  it  because  he 


160  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

puts  the  problem  too  reflectively,  too  self-consciously; 
because  his  philosophy  is  stark  naked?  Is  it  perhaps 
because  a  solved  problem  is  artistically  a  dead 
problem?  Or  does  the  flaw  He  in  the  nature  of  Tol- 
stoy's solution?  Are  jthere  greater  possibilities  for 
art  in  regarding  life  as  a  cruel  joke  or  a  senseless 
jumble  than  as  a  purposive,  man-centered  system? 
Is  it  because  under  Tolstoy's  hands  the  problem 
shrinks  from  a  cosmic  to  a  moral  one,  leaving  nature 
outside?  Tolstoy  was  a  keen  observer  of  nature, 
but  not  a  philosophical  interpreter  of  her  changes, 
laws,  and  moods.  Hardy's  cruel,  blunt  analysis  and 
Anatole  France's  comments,  at  once  sympathetic 
and  caustic,  run  the  problem  of  man  into  the  prob- 
lem of  nature.  Maeterlinck's  art  owes  much  to  his 
interest  in  nature;  the  individual's  life,  steeped  in 
mixture  of  the  delicate,  the  smooth,  the  fantastic, 
turns  to  a  richer,  more  aromatic  blend  of  character 
and  destiny.  But  Tolstoy  destroys  what  color  it  has 
by  washing  it  in  moral  brine. 

There  is  much  meat  for  argument  in  all  these 
questions;  and  there  is  not  a  little  that  is  perplexing 
in  Tolstoy  the  Artist  and  the  Thinker, 


VII 

NIETZSCHE 

Auf  jedem  Gleichniss  reitest  du  hier  zu 
jeder  Wahrheit.     Hier  springen  dir  alles 
Seins  Worte  und  Wort-Schreine  auf — 
— ^Thus  Spake  Zarathustra. 

There  was  a  time  when  Nietzsche  was  thought 
of  as  the  spirit  of  evil,  the  Antichrist  who  scoffed 
at  the  holiest  of  things,  the  Immoralist,  His  age  dis- 
owned him;  and  the  shadow  of  a  great  loneliness 
hung  over  him.  During  the  last  year  of  his  sane  life 
the  clouds  began  to  lift:  Brandes  lectured  on  him 
at  the  University  of  Copenhagen;  letters  from  young 
and  enthusiastic  disciples  arrived  from  Vienna. 
Then  there  came  a  time  when  every  youth  whose 
mind  was  in  a  ferment  of  social  revolt  saw  in  him  the 
great  Apostle  of  freedom;  when  students  talked 
much  and  wildly  of  his  Superman;  and  his  doctrines, 
often  strangely  distorted,  made  their  appearance 
in  Italian,  Norwegian,  and  Russian  literature.  Our 
interest  is  shifting  considerably.  We  are,  for  one 
thing,  in  possession  of  new  material:  the  Ecce  Homo 
and  the  Letters;  and  they  tell  us  much  of  the  physical 

161 


162  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

disabilities  of  this  Thinker,  of  his  moods,  of  his  spir- 
itual struggles,  of  a  heart  heavy  and  chilled  by  the 
hugeness  of  his  task  and  a  spirit  glorying  in  the 
contest;  they  reveal  the  sensitiveness  of  the  man 
and  his  curious  self-esteem.  Much  of  this  was  to 
be  had  for  the  asking  in  his  books.  But  best  of  all, 
they  reveal  the  Artist  in  this  Thinker.  By  furnish- 
ing us  with  bits  of  self-analysis,  with  observations  on 
his  style  and  on  the  way  in  which  his  imagination 
worked,  Nietzsche  has  given  us  a  new  clue  to  his 
work.  If  followed  out  it  will  show  clearly  the 
sesthetic  groundwork  of  his  philosophy;  it  will  reveal 
an  imagination  at  once  imperious  and  playful  at  work 
directing  the  drive  of  his  thought.  Few  thinkers  can 
boast  of  so  rich  an  artistic  endowment;  none  was  so 
utterly  mastered  by  it  or  so  intensely  interested  in 
some  of  its  problems, 

To  get  nearer  to  Nietzsche  the  artist  philosopher 
one  must  after  a  brief  reference  to  some  of  his  literary 
criticisms  and  opinions  pass  to  his  criticism  of  Wagner 
and  consider  all  it  impKes;  turn  to  his  famous  con- 
trast of  the  Dionysian  and  Apollonian  artist  and 
his  analysis  of  the  artistic  temperament;  and  one 
must  then  attempt  some  sort  of  an  interpretation 
of  his  style  and  imagination,  and  of  their  influence 
on  his  thought. 

Nietzsche's  literary  estimates  are  numerous.     Some 


NIETZSCHE  163 

are  trivial  and  superficial,  but  others  carry  straight 
to  his  beliefs  and  ideals.  Here  is  a  cluster  of  them, 
given  for  what  they  are  worth.  Few  philosophers  find 
grace  in  his  eyes:  Socrates^  Kant,  Mill,  Comte,  and 
Spencer  are  spoken  of  with  contempt;  Carlyle  is 
uncouth,  insincere,  self-tormented.  He  has  little 
patience  with  Ibsen  and  calls  Victor  Hugo  "  the 
lighthouse  on  the  sea  of  nonsense."  Schiller  moralizes 
and  Zola  brutalizes;  it  is  easily  guessed  which  to 
Nietzsche  is  the  deadlier  sin.  Sainte  Beuve  is  a 
resentful  woman  of  a  man,  and  Taine  has  been  all 
but  spoiled  by  Hegel.  He  appreciates  the  art  of 
men  like  Anatole  France,  Bourget,  and  Maupassant, 
and  he  tells  us  that  MoliSre,  Montaigne,  and  Corneille 
have  a  place  in  his  small  collection  of  favorite  books. 
He  prefers  Manfred  to  Faust.  He  speaks  of  the 
"  wild  and  tangled  ''  genius  of  Shakespeare,  but  feels 
the  dramatic  and  emotional  intensity  of  Hamlet 
and  King  Lear,  and  has  interpreted  the  problem  of 
Hamlet  in  a  striking  way.*  Heine  owes  his  suprem- 
acy as  a  lyrical  poet  to  the  "  sweet  and  passionate 

*  The  Birth  of  Tragedy:  "  In  this  sense  the  Dionysian  man 
resembles  Hamlet:  they  have  both  looked  deeply  and  truly  into  the 
being  of  things;  they  have  understood,  hence  the  prospect  of  action 
nauseates  them.  They  see  that  nothing  in  their  actions  can  change 
one  whit  the  essence  of  things;  they  feel  the  folly  and  the  disgrace 
of  the  demand  that  they  should  straighten  a  world  out  of  joint. 
Knowledge  slays  action;  if  we  are  to  act  illusion  must  veil  our  eye — 
this  is  the  true  meaning  of  Hamlet,  not  that  cheap  story  of  a  Jack 
o'  Dreams  who  fails  to  act  because  he  reflects  too  much  on  all  manner 


164  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

music  "  of  his  language.  Of  the  ancients,  Homer, 
iEschylus,  and  Pindar  stand  highest.  j 

Of  much  greater  importance  than  these  scattered 
criticisms  is  Nietzsche's  relation  to  Wagner,  both 
critical  and  personal.  The  tragedy  of  their  friend- 
ship is  well  known.  They  first  met  in  1866; 
Nietzsche,  much  the  younger  of  the  two,  felt  himself 
stimulated.  He  welcomed  Wagner  as  the  very  spirit 
of  music  and  the  forerunner  of  a  new  culture.  In 
1869  and  1870  they  spent  many  happy  Saturdays  and 
Sundays  together  at  Tribschen,  near  Lucerne — days 
of  mutual  confidences,  great  thoughts,  sincere  friend- 
ship; sunny  ^^  cloudless  "  days.  It  was  then  that 
Wagner's  greatness  smote  Nietzsche  like  a  life-giving 
wind;  and  up  sprang  those  two  great  and  extreme 
panegyrics.  The  Birth  of  Tragedy  and  Richard  Wagner 
in  Bayreuth,  A  few  years  later  this  young  enthusiast 
turned  sharply  away  from  Wagner,  and  took  issue 
with  his  philosophy  and  his  art.  His  own  philosophy 
was  in  the  making;  it  found  voice  in  Human  All  too 
Human.  He  sent  Wagner  a  copy  of  that  essay  at 
the  very  time  Wagner  was  sending  him  Parsifal. 
It  was,  says  Nietzsche,  like  the  crossing  of  two  swords. 
One  thing  only  could  come  of  it,  complete  estrange- 

of  possibilities.  No,  it  is  not  reflecting  that  makes  action  impossible 
— it  is  a  true  understanding  of,  and  insight  into  the  awful  truth,  it 
is'  this  that  paralyzes  every  impulse  to  act,  with  Hamlet  as  well  as 
with  the  Dionysian  man," 


NIETZSCHE  165 

ment  and — silence.  Nietzsche  became  more  and 
more  convinced  that  Wagner's  name  meant  the  ruin 
of  music  and  a  decadent  culture;  his  disapproval 
was  sharp  but  incidental  until,  in  the  year  1888,  it 
broke  out  with  unmeasured  vehemence  in  the  pam- 
phlets The  Case  of  Wagner;  Nietzsche  contra  Wagner, 
SLiidThe  Twilight  of  the  Idols. -"^  ^'^/^'^  \^!^-:\ 

There  is  real  tragedy  in  this  breach  of  a  very  deep 
and  sincere  friendship;  the  tragedy  of  a  sacrifice  to 
an  ideal.  In  Ecce  HomOy  written  just  before  madness 
closed  in  on  him,  Nietzsche  speaks  with  gratitude 
and  regret  of  the  days  at  Tribschen;  yet  his  attack 
is  severe  and  relentless.  Back  of  it  is  the  fanaticism 
of  the  idealist,  the  spiritual  convalescent  who  looks 
with  distrust  and  disgust  on  any  sign  of  disease. 
Nothing  could  be  more  cruel  than  your  out-and-out 
ideaHst  when  he  turns  upon  any  of  his  former  idola- 
tries and  enthusiasms.  Nietzsche's  devotion  to  the 
ideal  was  intense;  earnest  to  the  point  of  fanaticism, 
acutely  sensitive  to  suffering  in  himself  and  in  others, 
endowed  with  a  strange  defensive  irritability,  he 
struck  hard  when  his  loyalty  to  an  ideal  was  in  ques- 
tion. While  he  felt  the  loneliness  of  his  later  life 
keenly — no  man  had  sadder  need  of  friends  than  he — 
he  did  not  hesitate  to  break  with  his  best  friends 
when  a  community  of  interests  and  ideals  was  no 
longer  possible.  One  of  the  volumes  of  his  letters 
contains  his  correspondence  with  Rohde,  who  was 
one  of  his  finest  and  oldest  friends.     In  the  eighties 


166  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Nietzsche  began  to  feel  an  indifference,  a  silent  but 
all  the  more  provoking  resistance  to  his  ideal;  this 
impasse  irritated  and  depressed  him;  he  flared  up  and 
brought  the  friendship  to  an  abrupt  and  insulting 
close.  The  motives  for  his  break  with  Paul  Ree  were 
somewhat  different.  But  Nietzsche's  fanaticism  re- 
veals itself  most  strikingly  in  an  incident  whose 
disturbing  influence  colors  many  of  the  letters  of 
1882  and  1883.  Some  of  his  friends  had  recom- 
mended to  him  very  highly  a  young  Russian  woman, 
Lou  Salome,  as  a  kindred  soul,  a  possible  disciple; 
as  one  who  might  help  him  with  some  of  his  work. 
Hers  had  been  an  heroic  life  of  self-sacrifice  to  truth, 
to  knowledge.  Nietzsche,  with  a  philosopher's  lack 
of  gallantry,  describes  her  to  his  sister  as  a  girl  who 
for  want  of  good  looks  had  cultivated  her  intellect. 
The  heroics  appealed  to  him;  but  he  soon  came  to 
regard  her  as  a  person  without  "  ideals,  aims,  and 
duties".  Her  freedom  of  speech  and  action  shocked 
this  great  reviser  of  values,  who  proved  to  be  a 
bit  old-fashioned  after  all;  and  this  ^'  immoralist^^ 
reads  a  very  impressive  moral  lesson  on  true  heroism 
and  what  it  means  in  the  way  of  singlemindedness, 
devotion  to  an  ideal,  and  a  constant,  daily,  hourly 
response  to  a  sense  of  duty.  He  sees  his  own  "  holy 
self-love  "  caricatured  in  this  "  kitten's  selfishness  "  of 
Lou's  superficial,  affected,  insincere  mind;  and  when 
he  sees  all  this,  his  resentment  knows  no  bounds. 
A  blow    had   been    struck   at   his    ideal — and    Lou 


NIETZSCHE  167 

Salom6  received  as  harsh  a  letter  as  ever  idealist 
wrote. 

There  is  not  this  sharp,  discordant  personal  note 
in  the  breach  of  Nietzsche's  friendship  with  Wagner. 
Long  before  he  came  to  write  against  Wagner,  the 
issue  had  become  an  impersonal  one;  he  felt  he  was 
fighting  not  an  individual,  but  principles  and  ten- 
dencies. Still  there  is  often  a  venomous  sting  to  his 
words;  which  happens  whenever  the  aesthetic  critic 
yields  his  place  to  the  fanatic  devotee  of  an  ideal  he 
sees  endangered. 

In  the  welter  of  Nietzsche's  criticisms  of  Wagner 
there  are  but  a  few  that  are  purely  aesthetic,  and 
they  all  group  themselves  about  the  thought  that 
Wagner  lacks  style,  dramatic  and  musical.  It  seems 
strange  that  a  man  the  majority  of  whose  books  lack 
all  unity  except  the  unity  of  mood  should  have 
insisted  so  strongly  on  style  as  an  ordering  of  parts, 
and  should  have  denied  to  Wagner  the  power  to 
fashion  work  all  of  a  piece.  His  criticism  here  is  at 
its  unhappiest;  it  confuses  complexity  with  anarchy. 
He  overlooks  the  great  advance  of  the  music  drama 
over  the  opera  in  structural  unity.  He  gives  instances 
of  awkward  devices  such  as  the  following: 

"  Assume  Wagner  to  be  in  need  of  a  female  voice. 
A  whole  act  without  a  female  voice — impossible! 
But  all  his  heroines  are  for  the  time  being  engaged. 
What  does  Wagner  do?    He  emancipates  the  oldest 


168  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

woman  of  the  world — Mother  Earth.  '  Up,  aged 
grandmother,  you  must  sing! '  Mother  Earth  sings. 
Wagner  has  gained  what  he  wants,  so  he  packs  the 
old  lady  ojff.  '  Why  did  you  come,  anyway?  Off 
with  you,  and  have  the  kindness  to  continue  your 
nap.' '' 

But  he  fails  to  see  the  singleness  of  artistic  purpose 
which  marks  Wagner  at  his  best,  and  does  scant 
justice  to  the  theory  of  the  relation  of  poetry  to 
music.  Events  and  words  alone,  Wagner  would 
have  said,  cannot  possibly  give  the  full,  organized 
meaning  of  the  dramatic  idea;  they  need  the  services 
of  a  new  dramatic  and  implicational  music  with  a 
restless  to  and  fro,  a  varying  comment,  a  mutual 
enhancing  of  parts.  "  Infinite  melody  "  is  his  phrase 
for  it,  and  on  that  phrase  Nietzsche  pounces.  To 
him  it  suggests  the  nebulous,  the  formless,  the 
Hegelian;  it  is  a  pretentious  stage  trick  on  the  part 
of  an  idealist  to  disguise  his  lack  of  musical  style. 
Why  sacrifice  all  beauty  of  form  in  music  for  an 
infinite  cloud  realm  of  meaning,  a  ^^Nowhere  and 
Otherwhere  "?  Wagner  asks  us  to  swim  in  the  sea 
of  ^^ infinite  melody";  the  older  music,  light  and 
elegant  in  its  measures,  taught  us  to  dance.  Nietz- 
sche is  very  fond  of  this  metaphor  of  the  dance. 
Language  to  him  is  the  pipe  of  Dionysus,  light  and 
playful,  sad,  passionate  by  turn;  it  ought  to  express 
the  rhythmic  animation,  the  intensity,  and  versatility 
of  the  artist.    Rhythmic  and  appropriate  expression 


NIETZSCHE  169 

of  feeling  is  the  essence  of  style.  He  sees  no  sunni- 
ness,  no  lightness  in  Wagner's  music;  it  is  harsh  and 
formless;  it  lacks  deftness.  One  cannot  dance  to 
it  or  march  to  it;  "  not  even  the  young  German 
emperor  can  march  to  Wagner's  Kaisermarsch."  It 
does  violence  to  one's  sense  of  form,  and  therefore 
means  the  very  dissolution  of  style.  Intensity  there 
is — Nietzsche  never  denied  the  greatness  of  Tristan 
und  Isolde  in  this  respect — but  it  is  a  shattering 
intensity  which  makes  it  impossible  to  breathe  freely 
and  respond  rhythmically.  In  a  passage  in  The  Birth 
of  Tragedy  there  is  an  interesting  allusion  to  the 
third  act  of  Tristan  und  Isolde, 

"  How  should  it  be  possible  for  a  man  to  escape 
instant  destruction  when  he  has  put  his  ear  to  the 
very  heart  of  the  World  Will,  when  he  has  felt  a 
raging  lust  of  being — now  a  thundering  stream,  and 
then  a  bit  of  spray — in  every  vein  of  the  universe. 
How  should  he,  a  mere  fragile  shell  of  human  in- 
dividuality, endure  the  numberless  cries  of  joy  and 
anguish  reechoing  in  *  the  wide  space  of  worlds ' ; 
how  should  he  endure  this  shepherd  dance  of  meta- 
physics without  hurrying  to  his  old,  old  cosmic 
home?  '' 

At  that  time  he  recognized  a  calm,  Apollonian 
element  in  Wagner's  art,  which  acted  as  a  counter- 
poise to  a  passionate,  yearning  music.  Later  when 
Nietzsche  had  shaken  off  the  influence  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  had  begun  to  detect  musical  formlessness 


170  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

in  the  new  dramatic  music,  he  felt  in  the  score  of 
Tristan  und  Isolde  only  oppressive,  exhausting,  and 
crudely  elemental  passion.  Here  Nietzsche  goes 
beyond  purely  aesthetic  criticism,  for  he  sees  in  this 
passionateness  and  this  return  to  the  elemental  a 
symptom  and  a  sign  of  danger. 

Wagner  a  Danger!  in  this  heading  of  Nietzsche's 
lies  the  real  animus  of  his  attack.  His  philosophy 
looks  over  the  shoulder  of  his  art  criticism  and  takes 
aim.  Pied  Piper,  Klingsor  of  Klingsors,  Orpheus 
of  all  secret  misery,  he  calls  Wagner.  His  ideal  of 
health  is  that  of  a  spiritual  convalescent — he  admits 
as  much  in  the  Ecce  Homo — and  one  might  expect  a 
morbid  fear  of  disease  and  distrust  of  weakness.  Bias 
of  the  strongest  sort  is  the  inevitable  result,  but  one 
accepts  it  gladly  in  exchange  for  a  problem  of  great 
interest.  This  philosopher  who  looks  over  the  art 
critic's  shoulder — is  he  perhaps  at  soul  an  artist, 
a  Maker,  with  a  challenge?  The  problem  is  not  a 
simple  one.  Nietzsche  speaks  deprecatingly  of  the 
Artisten  Metaphysik  of  The  Birth  of  Tragedy.  But 
throughout  his  philosophy  from  the  ethical  ideals  of  a 
Superman  and  a  cultural  health  on  to  detailed  inter- 
pretation and  construction  there  is  a  perfect  tangle 
of  intellectual  and  artistic  motifs.  The  system-builder 
is  an  architect,  with  an  architect's  instincts;  and 
these  may  show  themselves  either  in  the  clamping 
together  of  parts  or,  as  in  Nietzsche's  case,  in  sin- 
glemindedness    and    distrust     together  with   much 


NIETZSCHE  171 

structural  looseness.  Even  apart  from  that,  there 
is  not  a  single  interpretation  of  a  doctrine  or  an  his- 
torical event  in  Nietzsche  uncolored  by  an  imagina- 
tion of  peculiar  quality;  back  of  such  a  simple  demand 
as  that  of  sharpness  and  cleanliness  of  thinking  is  his 
interpretation  of  the  Apollonian  artist.  Insight  into 
the  contrast  of  Apollonian  and  Dionysian  art  and  into 
Nietzsche's  artistic  imagination  may  clear  the  prob- 
lem; at  present  we  must  content  ourselves  with 
saying  that  it  is  the  artist  philosopher  who  looks 
over  the  shoulder  of  the  art  critic.  A  Weltanschauung 
condemns  Wagner;  a  way  of  taking  and  testing  the 
world  quite  as  dogmatic  and  zealous  as  Tolstoy's, 
but  much  nearer  the  aesthetic  in  its  ideals  and  motifs. 
Wagner  a  Dangerl  Why?  Because  he  is  the  very 
spirit  of  modernism:  a  weak,  restless  spirit  with  a 
craving  for  stimulants.  Nietzsche,  the  lonely  seeker 
and  champion  of  the  Superman,  turns  away  from  his 
age  with  a  surfeit  of  disgust.  It  is  poverty  stricken 
and  soul  sick;  it  lacks  quality  and  strength.  With 
its  newspapers,  labor  unions,  schools,  and  equality 
propaganda  it  is  an  age  for  the  Httle  man.  De- 
mocracy breeds  him,  and  society  cares  for  and  pam- 
pers him.  But  it  is  not  merely  plebeian;  it  is 
exhausted,  and  in  its  utter  exhaustion  it  is  lethargic 
and  hysterical  by  turn.  True  to  his  theory  that  the 
biological  up  and  down  of  an  age,  its  health  or  diseased 
condition,  is  reflected  in  its  art,  Nietzsche  comes  to 
see  in  Wagner  a  point  of  view  and  an  art  which  will 


172  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

aggravate  the  disease.  He  looks  back  on  his  earlier 
praise,  cries  Peccavi  and  utters  warning  after  warning. 
Where  he  once  saw  exuberance,  he  now  sees  weakness; 
where  he  saw  genius  and  originality,  he  now  sees  the 
anitcs  and  the  tricks  of  a  poseur;  where  he  saw  pas- 
sion, he  sees  fatigue  whipped  up  by  drugs.  He  dis- 
tinguishes a  pessimism  of  the  weak  and  a  pessimism 
of  the  strong. 

"  Is  there  a  pessimism  of  strength?  an  intellectual 
preference  for  what  is  hard,  fearful,  bad,  problematical 
in  life;  a  preference  that  springs  from  well-being, 
overflowing  health,  fulness  of  life?  Is  there  perhaps 
suffering  because  of  that  very  fulness?  " 

Quite  different,  this  "  testing  courage,"  from  the 
pessimism  of  the  weak!  The  weak  distrust  their 
passions,  they  become  ascetics;  they  are  afraid  of  the 
truth,  and  so  become  romantic;  they  don't  like  a 
fight  and  the  gritty  taste  of  real  life,  these  dispirited 
ones,  presto!  another  world  appears,  and  theirs  the 
task  to  be  otherworldly.  Nietzsche  sees  such  pro- 
tective cowardice  everywhere;  there  is  something 
almost  perverse  in  the  way  in  which  he  misjudges 
democracy  and  misreads  Christianity.  But  whatever 
its  source  and  justification,  this  general  antipathy 
colors  his  judgment  of  Wagner.  He  pokes  fun — 
and  bitter  fun  it  is  at  times — at  the  idea  of  salvation 
in  Wagner.  Every  one  in  Wagner  wishes  to  be  saved; 
and  every  one  is  saved,  preferably  by  a  woman. 


NIETZSCHE  173 

The  otherworldliness  of  Parsifal?  Anathema!  He 
had  once  been  a  great  admirer  of  Siegfried;  he  had 
seen  in  him  and  in  the  Edda  characters  strength  and 
pressure  of  life,  a  reminiscence  of  an  age  when  gods 
and  men  ahke  were  granite  boulders  flung  about 
by  a  cosmic  upheaval;  but  now  he  speaks  of  them  as 
shams,  and  of  Siegfried  as  fin  de  Steele,  as  an  inflated, 
sophisticated  modern.  The  truth  is,  he  distrusts 
Wagner.  He  has  no  stomach  for  that  nauseating 
draught:  "  sweetish  pity,"  insincere  otherworldli- 
ness, and  a  sensual,  flirtatious  asceticism.  Nietzsche 
has  put  this  distrust  in  verse.  The  original  German 
may  stand:  no  translation  is  possible. 

— 1st  Das  noch  deutsch? — 

Aus  deutschem  Herzen  kam  dies  schwiile  Kreischen? 

Und  deutschen  Leibs  ist  dies  Sich-selbst-Entfleischen? 

Deutsch  ist  dies  Priester-Handespreizen, 

Dies  weihrauch-diiftelne  Sinne-Reizen? 

Und  deutsch  dies  Stocken,  Stiirzen,  Taumeln, 

Dies  ungewisse  Bimbambaumeln? 

Dies  Nonnen-Aeugeln,  Ave-Glocken-Bimmein, 

Dies  ganze  falsch  verziickte  Himmel-Ueberhimmeln? 

— Ist  das  noch  deutsch? — 

Erwagt!    Noch  steht  ihr  an  der  Pforte: — 

Denn  was  ihr  hort,  ist  Rom, — Rom's  Glaube  ohne  Worte!" 

Nietzsche's  Weltanschauung  has  played  him  a  trick: 
the  much  admired  Colossus  of  Tribschen  shrivels  to 
the  theatrical  mannikin  of  Bayreuth,  the  Kirchenrat, 
and  then  this  mannikin,  growing  to  the  monstrous, 
becomes  a  bugbear,  a  deadly  danger.    There  is  much 


174  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

of  the  human,  all  too  human  In  Wagner;  at  times 
his  sensuality  is  not  sufl&ciently  robust  and  his 
asceticism  neither  subtle  nor  convincing;  his  essays 
are  vague,  stodgy,  and  high-flown — an  unpleasant 
mixture — and  the  note  of  sex  is  struck  too  often. 
But  Nietzsche  distorts  like  all  idealists.  His  palette 
contains  the  most  resplendent  whites  and  the  deep- 
est blacks;  and  while  he  had  once  painted  Wagner's 
portrait  in  white,  he  now  does  it  in  solid  black. 

Two  gods  of  Nietzsche's  youth — Wagner  and  Scho- 
penhauer— had  been  toppled  over;  his  third  great 
enthusiasm — Greek  culture  and  Greek  Kterature — 
remained  secure.  Like  all  good  Germans  he  knew 
his  Homer  and  Sophocles  and  had  a  well  supplied 
philosopher's  kit  when  he  left  school;  but  he  was 
original  and  enterprising  as  well,  read  his  philoso- 
phers in  his  own  way,  and  upset  the  philologists  with 
a  brilliant,  imaginative  theory  of  Greek  tragedy. 
He  was  twenty-eight  when  he  wrote  The  Birth  of 
Tragedy  from  the  Spirit  of  Music,  in  which  he  inter- 
preted Greek  tragedy  as  the  meeting-point  of  two 
great  cultural  forces,  the  Apollonian  and  Dionysian^ 
at  work  in  Greek  religion,  philosophy,  and  art.  Later 
on  he  had  much  fault  to  find  with  the  essay,  on  the 
score  of  style,  and  because  he  felt  that  he  had  mixed 
what  he  called  the  Greek  problem  with  the  Wagner 
problem.  His  interest  in  Greek  culture,  however, 
lost  none  of  its  strength;  it  simply  became  more  dis- 


NIETZSCHE  175 

criminating  and  also  more  onesided  when  he  dis- 
covered certain  dangerous,  disintegrating  tendencies 
in  the  rise  of  Socratic  philosophy  and  of  science. 
Socrates,  in  whom  he  saw  a  disease  and  a  danger, 
becomes  his  bete  noir.  When  could  Nietzsche  do 
without  a  bete  noir?  in  fact  he  sometimes  felt  that  he 
himself  was  one.  There  remained  also  the  contrast 
Nietzsche  had  so  sharply  indicated,  but  the  terms 
Apollonian  and  Dionysian  were  used  with  an  ever 
wider  fling  of  meaning.  They  now  appeared  as 
contrasted  universal  types  or  moods  rather  than  as 
shapers  of  Greek  culture.  Not  that  this  was  anything  ^ 
but  a  stressing  and  developing  of  much  The  Birth  of 
Tragedy  contained. 

The  Apollonian  is  a  mood  of  calmness,  of  measure,  — 
of  tranquil  pursuit  of  sheer  beauty;  the  Dionysian  is 
a  mood  of  ecstatic,  drunken,  reeling  frenzy,  of  life  j/ 
at  full  pressure.  The  tutelary  divinity  of  the  first 
is  Apollo,  the  limpid,  harmonious  Olympian;  that  of 
the  second  is  Dionysus,  the  stranger  god  from  Asia, 
the  reveller  and  leader  of  wild-eyed  votaries.  Every- 
where may  these  types  be  found;  they  are  two  master 
forces  of  cosmic  life:  fermentation  and  clarification. 
Theirs  is  an  important  part  in  the  household  economy 
of  nature.  Nietzsche  points  to  Dionysian  elements 
in  all  Oriental  religions,  to  frenzied  songs  and  dances, 
to  the  self-absorption  and  exaltation  of  the  mystic, 
to  the  dancing  manias  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  to  the 
mixture  of  lust  and  cruelty,  ^^  that  witches'  draught,'' 


176  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

which  is  such  a  noxious  ingredient  in  many  primitive 
religions. 

Nietzsche  is  at  his  best  when  he  describes  one  or  the 
other  of  these  types.  Back  of  the  contrast  is  of  course 
Schiller's  theory  of  Stoftrieb  and  Formtrieb.  With 
Schiller  it  was  a  bit  of  Kantian  philosophy  thinly 
disguised  and  with  much  of  the  tang  of  rationalism 
remaining.  But  the  artist  in  Nietzsche  changes  all 
this;  he  makes  us  feel  the  wild  pulse-beat  of  the 
Dionysian  and  the  calm  splendor  of  the  Apollonian 
in  his  wonderfully  flexible  prose;  he  describes  both 
so  well  because  he  is  both;  he  is  "  Rauschkunstler  " 
and  "  TraumkUnstler  "  in  one. 

The  Dionysian  mood  is  not  a  simple  one;  and 
Nietzsche  gives  finely  its  varying  characteristics. 
First,  the  self-surrender  of  the  individual  and  a 
feeling  of  oneness  with  nature.  There  are  moment^ 
when  we  are  not  a  steadily  glowing  light  swung 
aloft  above  the  altar  of  our  god,  but  a  raging  fire 
with  a  desire  for  divine  absorption  consuming  our 
souls.  Second,  vigor,  exuberance,  frenzy.  ^Eschy- 
lus  and  Rodin  are  in  this  sense  Dionysian  artists. 
Third,  revelling  in  conflict  as  such,  in  contradiction 
as  such:  in  the  sharpness  of  life's  blows  and  the 
pungent  bitterness  of  its  flavor.*    Fourth,  a  certain 

*  This  is  Nietzsche's  "  heroic  pessimism."  In  The  Twilight  of 
the  Idols  he  interprets  tragedy  in  this  spirit.  "  What  does  the 
tragic  artist  give  us  of  himself?  Is  it  not  his  fearlessness  when  con- 
fronted with  what  is  fearful  and  enigmatic?    This  state  of  fearless- 


NIETZSCHE  177 

sadness  touched  with  weariness.  This  may  seem  a 
false  note  in  Nietzsche's  picture,  but  there  is  nothing 
more  natural  than  passing  from  intense  excitement 
to  a  spent  state  of  exhaustion,  and  to  a  mood  of 
wearied  sadness. 

The  Apollonian  mood  is  partly  an  urgent  demand 
to  create,  to  render  beauty;  partly  a  desire  to  keep 
sane,  to  escape  from  inner  and  outer  unreason  to  a 
dream  world;  it  is  a  mood  of  self-possession,  of  cheer- 
fulness and  thankfulness. 

These  moods  express  themselves  in  art:  the  _3 
Apollonian  in  sculpture  and  epic  poetry — theirs  are 
sharp  outlines,  an  unruffled  stateliness,  and  a  tran- 
quil beauty;  the  Dionysian  in  the  throbbing  life  of 
music,  in  the  abandon  of  the  dance,  and  in  the 
passionate  lyric.  Art  reflects  culture;  in  Greek  cul- 
ture they  stand  out  sharply.  Many  before  Nietzsche^ 
had  recognized  the  Apollonian  element  in  Greek  art; 
men  like  Winckelmann  and  Goethe  never  tired  of 
pointing  to  the  ideal  and  reposeful  beauty  of  Greek 
sculpture,  and  to  the  sure  touch  and  unerring  sense 

ness  is  highly  desirable;  he  who  knows  it  bestows  upon  it  the  great- 
est honors.  He  communicates  it  to  others;  this  he  must  do  if  he  is 
an  artist,  a  genius  at  giving.  Courage  and  freedom  of  feeling  in 
the  presence  of  a  mighty  enemy,  of  a  sublime  disaster,  of  a  problem 
fraught  with  terror — this  victorious  attitude  is  what  the  tragic 
artist  selects  and  glorifies.  What  is  warlike  in  our  souls  celebrates  in 
tragedy  its  Saturnalia.  He  who  knows  sorrow  and  seeks  sorrow — 
the  heroic  man — praises  in  tragedy  his  own  existence;  it  is  to  him 
that  the  tragic  poet  offers  the  honor  of  this  sweetest  of  all  cruel 
draughts." 


178  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

of  form  revealed  in  even  the  lesser  arts.  Nietzsche 
admits  this  delight  in  ordered  beauty,  in  clear  colors, 
sharp  contours,  and  linear  grace;  he  admits  "  the 
incredibly  precise  and  unerring  plastic  power  "  of 
the  Greek  eye;  he  accepts  in  part  the  traditional  view 
that  evenness,  sunniness,  and  saneness  marked  the 
racial  temper  of  the  Greeks.  But  what  was  com- 
monly held  to  be  an  endowment  he  interpreted  as  an 
achievement.  How  the  Greek  must  have  suffered 
and  struggled  before  he  could  change  chaos  into 
cosmos,  and  wrest  measure  and  poise  from  the 
unchecked  and  the  violent!  How  he  must  have  cut 
into  his  passions  and  hacked  at  his  world!  Rightly 
or  wrongly  Nietzsche  reads  the  problem  of  Greek 
art  and  culture  in  terms  of  a  struggle  between  Diony- 
sian  and  Apollonian  forces.  He  distinguishes  four 
periods.  In  the  first,  the  pre-Homeric  period,  the 
Dionysian  spirit  is  rampant;  and  it  finds  an  outlet 
in  barbarous  theogonies,  in  a  titanic,  grotesque  folk- 
philosophy.  The  second,  the  Homeric  period,  is 
Apollonian.  Homer's  mellow  art  casts  a  glamour  on 
even  the  commonest  things,  and  the  world  appears 
bathed  in  simple,  translucent  beauty.*    Then  there 


*  In  Romeros  WeUkampf,  written  in  1872  as  the  preface  to  a  pro- 
jected book,  Nietzsche  characterizes  these  first  two  periods  strongly: 

"  But  what  lies  as  the  beginning  of  all  that  is  Greek  back  of  the 
Homeric  world?  In  the  latter  the  extraordinary  sureness,  restful- 
ness,  and  purity  of  line  carry  us  beyond  a  mere  fusing  of  matter; 
because  of  an  aesthetic  illusion  its  colors  seem  brighter,  warmer,  and 


NIETZSCHE  179 

is  in  the  third  period  an  inrush  of  the  Dionysian  from 
the  North;  barbarous,  ecstatic  cults  come  from 
Thrace;  in  the  South  the  turbulent  lyric  makes  itself 
heard;  notes  of  pessimism  and  weariness  are  struck 
by  the  philosophers  of  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries. 
But  Apollo  again  triumphs:  in  the  severe  grace  of 
Doric  architecture  and  sculpture  and  in  the  beauty 
and  polish  of  Attic  prose.  His  triumph  marks  the 
fourth  period.  This  bold  sketch  of  Greek  culture 
fails  to  take  account  of  racial  differences  among  the 
Greeks,  of  the  effects  of  political  and  industrial  con- 
ditions, and  of  the  purely  personal  factor  in  poetry, 
say  in  the  lyrics  of  Archilochus.  Still  modern 
scholarship   has  borne   out  Nietzsche's   view   of   a 

lighter,  its  people  appear  better  and  more  akin  to  us  in  this  multi- 
colored, warm  light.  But  what  do  we  behold  when,  no  longer 
guided  and  shielded  by  the  hand  of  Homer,  we  stalk  back  into  the 
pre-Homeric  world?  Darkness  and  terror  and  the  products  of  an 
imagination  used  to  the  horrible!  Whatman  existence  is  mirrored  in 
these  repellent,  fearful  theogonies  and  myths:  a  life  ruled  by  the 
Children  of  Night,  strife,  lust,  fraud,  old  age  and  death!  Imagine 
the  stifling  air  of  Hesiod's  poems  thickened  and  darkened  still  more, 
without  the  softening  and  purifying  influences  emanating  from 
Delphi  and  numerous  Greek  temples;  mix  this  heavy  Boeotian  air 
with  the  gloomy  lustfulness  of  the  Etruscan — and  you  could  press 
from  a  reality  such  as  this  a  world  of  myths  compared  with  which 
Uranus,  Kronus  and  Zeus  and  the  battles  of  the  Titans  would  seem 
a  reHef.  In  this  brooding  atmosphere  battle  is  the  way  to  safety, 
and  the  cruelty  of  victory  is  the  acme  of  the  joy  of  Hfe.  Greek  law 
and  morality  go  back  in  their  origins  to  blood-guilt  and  retribution; 
a  nobler  stage  of  culture  takes  its  first  wreath  of  victory  from  the 
altar  dedicated  to  the  cleansing  of  blood-guilt." 


180  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

primitive,    formless    Dionysian    element    in    early 
Greek  religion. 

Greek  tragedy  is  at  once  Dionysian  and  Apollonian. 
It  sprang  from  the  dithyramb,  from  legends,  from 
the  life  of  the  god  Dionysus  and  a  chorus  of  satyrs, 
the  woodland  companions  of  the  god.  On  the  wave 
of  this  Dionysian  excitement,  of  chant,  music,  and 
dance  the  cultured  Greek  was  carried  and  set  down 
in  the  midst  of  primordial  nature.  Generations  of 
restraint  fell  away  from  him,  and  he  again  felt 
the  earthy  savour  of  life  at  its  freest  and  wildest. 
The  Greek  theatre,  of  circular  and  terraced  con- 
struction, allowed  this  excitement  to  sweep  from 
chorus  to  spectator.  The  chorus  takes  no  prominent 
part  in  the  action,  not  because,  as  Schiller  had  sug- 
gested, it  serves  to  mark  off  the  world  of  tragedy  as 
an  ideal  world,  but  because  it  is  the  voice  of  a  world 
older  than  the  clash  of  individual  wills.  It  stands  by 
with  deep-echoing  wisdom  on  its  tongue,  as  the  fellow 
sufferer,  as  the  servant  of  its  god.  It  excites,  exalts, 
and  sobers;  and  prepares  the  way  for  the  Apollonian 
vision.  Man  slakes  his  thirst  at  the  well  of  life.  He 
feels  the  fire  of  good  old  wine  in  his  veins.  But  he 
also  feels  the  constraint  to  shape  a  dream-world; 
without  it  and  its  illusions  life  would  become  oppress- 
ive beyond  endurance.  On  this  underground  of 
world-will  there  is  the  dazzling  picture  spray  of  the 
Apollonian.  The  dialogue  and  the  characters  rep- 
resent the    Apollonian  element    in  Greek   tragedy. 


NIETZSCHE  181 

Nothing  could  be  simpler,  more  harmonious,  more 
transparent  than  the  language  and  the  characters  of 
Sophocles.  We  seem  to  know  them  through  and 
through,  these  Sophoclean  men  and  women.  But 
they  are  really  nothing  but  luminous  pictures  flung 
across  a  dark  screen.  Their  clear  lineaments  form  a 
restful  and  healing  contrast  to  the  gloomy,  ill  ordered, 
terrifying  myth;  they  offer  an  escape  from  the  panic 
or  the  nausea  of  existence. 

One  feels  the  influence  of  Schiller,  Schopenhauer, 
and  Wagner  in  Nietzsche's  early  aesthetics;  but  his 
theory  of  Greek  tragedy  is  quite  original  in  its  im- 
aginative force.  Starlight  in  a  black  mountain  lake 
— a  fine  conception  of  tragedy!  His  interpretation 
of  the  (Edipus  story  or  the  Prometheus  myth  may 
be  un-Greek,  it  at  least  shows  artistic  insight  into  pos- 
sibilities; he  is  as  truly  a  Maker  as  Goethe  was  when 
he  took  the  old  Faust  legend  and  its  naive  delight 
in  magic  and  polemics,  and  made  of  it  the  drama  of 
the  restless  seeker  of  an  abiding  self, 

The  terms  Apollonian  and  Dionysian  appear  in 
Nietzsche  long  after  this  special  problem  of  tragedy 
disappears.  They  are  interpreted  psychologically, 
and  may  serve  to  usher  in  Nietzsche's  picture  of  the 
artist — a  picture  which  in  turn  may  be  made  to  reveal 
Nietzsche  the  artist-philosopher.  His  biological  stud- 
ies have  borne  fruit;  for  him  there  is  no  absolute 
beauty;   there  is  only  a  "  human,  all  too  human  " 


ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

^auty.  Nature  is  at  heart  neither  beautiful  nor 
ugly,  just  as  she  is  neither  good  nor  bad.  Man  may 
stamp  her  with  his  own  weakness  and  littleness  or 
'  he  may  dower  her  with  his  own  wealth  and  strength; 
;  in  either  case  art  is  self-expression.  It  matters 
greatly  what  sort  of  a  self  is  expressed.  Nietzsche 
is  not  altogether  consistent;  he  often  sees  strength 
and  weakness  in  Nature  herself,  he  contrasts  periods 
of  health  and  decay,  and  in  this  way  seems  to  get  an 
objective  foundation  for  morality  and  art.  But  he 
is  far  removed  from  the  dogmatism  of  certain  evolu- 
tionists; he  lacks  the  easy  assurance  with  which 
Spencer  strolls  up  the  world  stairs.  Life  to  him  may 
be  a  Penelope  web  of  ups  and  downs  or  it  may  be  a 
music  box  with  a  round  of  tunes;  it  is  the  attitude 
towards  life  that  counts.  There  is  a  yea-saying 
and  a  nay-saying  to  life,  in  art  as  well  as  in  morality; 

/  there  is  an  art  of  the  strong  and  an  art  of  the  weak. 

^"  Great  art  is  strong  art  and  stands  for  heightened 
vigor,  impelling  wealth  and  a  wholehearted  response 
to  life.  It  may  be  of  the  Dionysian  type  or  of  the 
Apollonian,  that  of  a  Rubens  and  a  Shakespeare  or 
that  of  a  Homer  and  a  Goethe.  The  two  types  are 
reinterpreted.  They  touch  each  other  at  certain 
points:  both  are  moods  of  intoxication;  in  both  there 
is  a  strange  power  of  divination.  What  a  drunken- 
ness of  the  eye  and  the  ear  there  is  in  the  Apollonian; 
how  he  revels  in  color  and  sound  and  form!  But 
there  is  also  a  delicate  sense  of  measure  which  orders 


NIETZSCHE  183 

his  impressions,  gives  him  a  sense  of  hidden  beauty, 
and  a  cool  and  playful  mastery  over  a  dream  world. 
Maeterlinck  might  well  be  this  Nietzschean  artist, 
he  lacks  not  a  single  one  of  these  traits.  The  Diony- 
sian  intoxication  is  a  diffused  excitement  bursting 
forth  into  passion,  into  explosive  feeling.  The  Diony- 
sian  artist  is  forceful,  rich,  passionate,  masterful; 
he  does  not  respond  readily  to  form,  but  his  imagina- 
tion, at  once  intense  and  of  great  range,  allows  him 
to  divine  the  emotional.  And  once  divined,  he  can- 
not resist;  with  a  reckless,  lunging  self-assertion  he 
throws  himself  at  life.  His  is  a  mood  of  joyful  and 
courageous  abandon;  he  gives  of  himself  without 
stint.  His  is  the  ecstatic  dance  of  the  warrior;  and 
not  that  thing  of  divine  lightness,  of  calm  strength 
and  tremulous  beauty:  the  dance  of  the  Apollonian. 

This  whole  contrast,  together  with  the  many  fine 
remarks  on  the  psychology  of  the  artist  which  are 
grouped  about  it,  strikes  a  very  personal  note. 
One  feels  that  Nietzsche  has  drawn  on  himself,  has 
generalized  from  his  processes  and  methods  as  an 
artist.  He  himself  dispels  the  slightest  doubt  on 
that  point,  for  he  is  fully  aware  of  his  artistic  endow- 
ment and  often  refers  to  his  Apollonian  and  Dionysian 
nature.  To  say  that  Nietzsche  attributed  to  himself 
both  types  because  he  felt  that  he,  a  great  man  in  his 
own  eyes,  must  have  the  tensional  and  varied  nature 
of  great  men,  is  an  unkind  and  false  suggestion.  It 
may  at  once  be  admitted  that  as  a  seK-critic  he  had 


184  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

grave  faults.  He  lacked  a  true  estimate  of  his  place 
and  rank.  Much  in  Ecce  Homo  is  wild;  some  of  it 
reads  like  the  confessions  of  a  megalomaniac.  He  has 
given  the  world  the  greatest  of  its  books,  a  well  of 
gold  and  kindness;  he  is  the  great  transvaluer  who 
has  split  human  history  in  two;  time  is  to  be  reckoned 
from  him;  the  combined  geniuses  of  the  ages  could 
not  have  produced  a  single  one  of  the  speeches  of 
Zarathustra:  that  is  his  tone.  But  a  man  may  form 
the  silliest  over-estimate  or  under-estimate  of  himself 
and  his  work,  and  yet  may  show  an  understanding  of 
the  trend  of  his  thought  and  true  insight  into  his 
peculiarities  as  an  Artist  and  a  Thinker.  Here 
Nietzsche's  touch  is  sure.  The  contrast  between  the 
Apollonian  and  Dionysian  may  not  be  as  sharp  as  one 
would  like,  it  may  occasionally  exhibit  wavering 
and  a  shifting  of  qualities,  but  there  is  not  a  single 
quahty  mentioned  which  does  not  in  some  manner 
mark  the  artist  and  reveal  Nietzsche's  almost  un- 
canny self-knowledge.  Every  one  of  these  qualities 
may  be  traced  in  the  artistic  motifs  of  his  philosophy 
as  well  as  in  the  rhythm  and  imagery  of  his  language. 
On  the  whole  Nietzsche  stresses  the  Dionysian. 
He  appeals  to  Dionysus;  he  credits  himself  with 
having  revived  the  dithyramb;  he  considers  Thus 
Spake  Zarathustra  a  Dionysian  stroke  of  genius.  To 
him  that  book  is  a  masterpiece,  and  he  has  much  to 
say  of  its  excellences.  He  refers  to  its  passionateness. 
The  speeches  of  Zarathustra  throb  and  glow  with  an 


NIETZSCHE  185 

intense  love  of  life  and  with  a  passionate  devotion  to 
an  ideal.  Parts  of  the  book  were  written  rapidly, 
under  full  pressure,  on  long  walks  up  the  mountains;  in 
all  of  it  Nietzsche  feels  the  returning  tide  of  health  and 
power.  He  refers  to  the  music  of  its  language,  the  dan- 
cing rhythms,  the  varying  tempo.  And  he  refers  to  the 
range:  here  are  to  be  found  the  softest,  the  sweetest, 
the  lightest,  and  also  the  most  awe-inspiring  and  soul- 
compelling  strains.  His  criticisms  are  not  far  wrong, 
he  has  indeed  hit  upon  the  quaUties  that  make  Thus 
Spake  Zarathustra  his  finest  achievement  as  an  artist. 
But  it  is  more  than  a  mass  of  Dionysian  poems;  it 
gives,  as  no  other  work  of  his  does,  the  essence  of  his 
philosophy.  That  essence  does  not  lie  in  the  in- 
tellectual padding  which  is  to  be  found  elsewhere  in 
Nietzsche.  While  the  editors  are  largely  respon- 
sible for  the  arrangement  of  the  manuscript  material 
of  The  Will  to  Power,  many  of  the  pedantic  divisions 
and  headings  are  Nietzsche's;  so  are  also  the  school- 
man's discussions  of  points.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  many  passages  in  his  letters  and  in  such  books  as 
The  Genealogy  of  Morals  and  Beyond  Good  and  Evil, 
The  pedantry  even  filters  through  to  the  language. 
Learning  has  its  affectations  and  awkwardnesses, 
and  at  his  worst  this  master  of  style  exhibits  them 
abundantly.  Nor  is  this  essence  to  be  found  in  the 
unclear  enthusiasms  of  the  youthful  Birth  of  Tragedy. 
Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  Nietzsche  as  a  phil- 
osopher, the  charge  of  unclearness  cannot  be  lodged 


186  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

I  against  him  in  his  later  work.  He  is  too  much  of  an 
Apollonian  for  that;  his  weakness  lies  in  the  transi- 
tions, and  not  in  the  ideas  or  conceptions,  which  have 
something  of  the  sharpness  of  a  fine  etching.  It  is 
in  the  expression  of  mood,  in  certain  emotional 
reactions,  that  the  meaning  of  his  philosophy  Hes; 
and  the  best  clue  to  that  meaning  is  given  in  Thus 
Spake  Zarathustra.  Take,  for  example,  the  doctrine 
of  eternal  recurrence;  what  does  it  mean  to  Nietz- 
sche? He  might  have  raised  the  question  of  a  finite 
or  an  infinite  universe,  and  might  have  tried  to  \^ork 
the  number  of  possible  combinations  mathematically; 
he  might  have  been  interested  in  it  from  the  point  of 
view  of  system-building.  But  of  the  second  interest 
there  is  even  less  than  of  the  first.  It  may  be  ingen- 
ious sport  to  show  how  a  philosophy  is  all  of  a  piece, 
and  to  make  all  its  theories  fit,  but  it  is  dangerous 
sport  with  Nietzsche's.  One  can,  of  course,  show  how 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  recurrence  connects  with  his 
interpretation  of  what  is  commonly  called  evolution 
and  how  it  fits  in  with  his  doctrine  of  the  Superman, 
but  little  or  nothing  is  gained,  for  these  other  theories 
are  differently  shaped  and  colored  at  different  times. 
Whatever  congruity  there  is  in  his  philosophy  is 
largely  emotional.  The  doctrine  of  eternal  recurrence 
interests  Nietzsche  only  as  the  possible  carrier  of 
certain  moods. 

"Everything  goes,  everything  returns;  forever  rolls 


NIETZSCHE  187 

the  wheel  of  being.      Everything  dies,  everything 
blooms  again;  forever  passes  the  year  of  being. 

*^  Everything  breaks,  everything  is  made  anew; 
forever  the  same  house  of  being  is  built.  All  things 
part  and  all  things  meet;  eternally  true  to  itself 
remains  the  circle  of  being.'' 

But  what  of  the  "  little  man  " ;  is  he  to  return,  too? 
What  of  sickness  and  weakness;  is  there  no  way  of 
ridding  the  universe  of  them?  Thoughts  such  as 
these  sweep  over  Zarathustra  like  a  wave  of  disgust 
an4  despair.  But  why  then  entertain  them,  it  might 
be  asked?  It  is  because  they  develop  at  the  rebound 
another  mood,  that  of  the  fighter.  It  is  a  mood  that 
appeals  to  Nietzsche,  and  most  of  his  fighting  was 
done  within  the  shadow  of  physical  depression  and  of 
disgust  with  his  fellows.  The  Ecce  Homo  proves 
that;  so  do  his  letters.  The  thought  of  an  eternal t 
recurrence  favors  fighting  at  its  purest,  for  the  mere  \ 
love  of  it,  with  no  hope  of  a  final  victory.  The ' 
Superman  knows  that  for  every  up  there  is  a  down; 
he  understands  that  events  will  swing  full  cycle  and 
that  the  weaklings  whom  he  has  trodden  under  foot, 
the  "  many,  all  too  many,"  will  defeat  him  in  turn. 
But  he  fights  on;  the  mood  of  depression  yields  to  a 
fighting  mood,  which  is  in  part  the  mere  joy  of  play- 
ing the  game  of  life,  in  part  a  sort  of  heroic  enthusi- 
asm, in  part  the  stimulating  sense  of  creative  power. 
It  is  a  mistake,  however,  to  say  that  Nietzsche's 
fighter  has  no  thought  of  results,  no  eye  to  victory. 


188  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

While  he  sees  no  hope  of  final  success,  he  feels  the  in- 
centive of  an  enthusiasm,  of  an  ideal.  This  beyond 
all  else  marks  Zarathustra :  he  is  a  pleader  and  spokes- 
man of  the  future;  a  pioneer  and  a  builder.  He 
feels  his  task  and  has  faith  in  his  work.  If  fighting 
is  looked  at  from  this  angle  exclusively,  the  fact  of 
eternal  recurrence  will  be  merely  a  complicating 
incident.  But  in  Nietzsche  the  mood  is  often  a 
different  one.  The  clue  is  given  by  two  passages, 
one  from  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra,  the  other  from 
Book  IV  of  The  Will  to  Power. 

The  passage  in  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  is  called 
The  Seven  Seals,  It  is  a  wonderful  paean  with  a 
triumphant  refrain:  For  I  love  thee,  0  Eternity.  It 
is  too  long  to  give  in  full,  but  these  two  selections 
show  the  mood. 

'^  If  ever  there  came  to  me  a  breath  of  a  creator's 
breath,  and  of  that  divine  necessity  which  compels 
accidents  even  to  dance  the  circular  dance  of  the 
stars; 

"  If  ever  I  laughed  with  the  laugh  of  the  creative 
lightning,  as  it  is  followed  obediently  but  sullenly  by 
the  thunder  of  action; 

*'  If  ever  I  played  dice  with  the  gods  at  their  table, 
the  earth,  and  played  so  that  the  earth  shook  and 
broke  and  breathed  floods  of  fire; 

'*  — for  the  earth  is  a  table  of  the  gods,  and  it 
trembles  with  creators'  words  and  the  dice-throws 
of  the  gods — 

"  Oh,  how  should  I  not  long  for  Eternity  and  for 


NIETZSCHE  189 

the  bridal  ring  of  rings,  the  ring  of  Eternal  Recur- 
rence? '' 

The  other  selection: 

"  If  ever  I  drank  a  deep  draught  from  the  foaming 
spice-  and  mixing-bowl,  in  which  all  things  are  well 
mixed; 

"  If  ever  my  hand  poured  together  the  most  dis- 
tant and  the  near,  fire  and  spirit,  joy  and  sorrow,  the 
worst  and  the  kindliest; 

^'  If  I  am  a  grain  of  that  saving  salt  which  causes  all 
things  to  be  well  mixed  in  the  mixing-bowl 

"  — for  there  is  a  salt  which  binds  the  good  and  the 
bad;  and  even  the  worst  has  its  value  in  the  season- 
ing and  the  last  foaming — 

"  Oh,  how  should  I  not  long  for  Eternity  and  for 
the  bridal  ring  of  rings,  the  ring  of  Eternal  Recur- 
rence? " 

The  note  of  creative  self-expression  is  struck  again 
and  again.  Give  me  a  self  to  express  and  a  world 
to  mould,  Nietzsche  would  say.  There  is  nothing 
depressing  in  the  thought  of  eternal  recurrence. 
Could  you  stop  the  brush  of  the  painter  by  reminding 
him  that  thousands  of  years  hence  his  canvases 
will  be  mere  dust?  That  final  result  will  not  affect 
him;  he  paints  his  picture — there  is  enough  of  an 
ideal  right  there — and  feels  the  zest  of  self-expression. 
This  is  what  Nietzsche  feels.  He  asks  for  a  plastic 
world,  a  world  of  merging  contrasts,  of  bitter  strife,  of 
mingled  good  and  evil.     It  is  not  to  be  plastic  in  any 


190  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

final  sense;  there  is  lacking  here  James's  craving  for 
newness  and  ever  changing  experimentation.  The 
plasticity — or  rather  the  illusion  of  plasticity — is 
within  one  of  the  cycles  or  Great  Years  of  a  circKng 
eternity,  but  that  is  all  that  is  needed — a  bit  of  clay 
or  palette  of  colors  and  an  ideal.    The  same  invigor- 

-  ating  thought  is  found  in  The  Will  to  Power,  The 
artist's  sense  of  power  and  intense  deUght  in  self- 
expression  have  been  transferred  to  the  world-game. 
Nothing  could  be  sharper  than  the  contrast  between 
the  active,  dramatic  enthusiasm  of  Nietzsche  and  the 
contemplative  enthusiasm  of  a  Marcus  AureUus.  The 
Stoic  sings:  ^^  Whatsoever  is  expedient  unto  thee,  O 
Universe,  is  expedient  unto  me";  but  there  is  in 
him  no  trace  of  a  sucherische,  versucherische  Tdtigkeit, 
nothing  of  testing  and  experimenting  self-expression; 
there  is  also  no  trace  of  that  intense  self -reference 
!  which  is  so  important  a  mark  of  Nietzsche's  artistic 

I  and  philosophical  personality.  Marcus  Aurelius  and 
Hegel,  each  in  his  own  way,  had  a  profound  faith  in 
the  reasonableness  of  the  universe,  and  placed  highest 
among  the  duties  loyalty  to  the  truth  and  reason  of 
things.  Nietzsche  plays  brilliantly  on  the  Hegelian 
An  und  fUr  sich  Sein  der  Dinge  when  he  substitutes 
for  it  the  phrase  An  undjur  mich  Sein  der  Dinge,  It 
is  I  that  count;  give  me  a  world  I  can  work  myself 
out  in.  Whatever  drama  there  is  is  self-drama. 
There  Hes  the  difference  in  the  dramatic  as  it  appears 
in  Hegel  and  the  dramatic  as  it  appears  in  Nietzsche. 


NIETZSCHE  191 

In  Hegel  it  is  objective,  a  sympathetic  understanding!] 
of  a  progressive  world-movement  and  all  its  compli-y 
cations;  with  Nietzsche  it  is  subjective;  that  is  whyj 
he  is  not  a  good  interpreter  of  history,  whether  that 
history  be  political,  social  or  cultural.  He  mis- 
reads Socratic  philosophy,  gives  fanciful  and  often 
very  naive  interpretations  of  the  early  phases  of 
Christianity  and  of  the  origin  of  morality,  and  shows 
no  grasp  of  the  advancing  democracy  and  the  eco- 
nomic unrest  of  his  time.  It  is  true  that  Hegel  is  not 
always  a  good  interpreter  of  history;  but  when  he 
errs  it  is  because  he  links  events  artificially  in  the 
interests  of  his  idea  of  a  cosmic  reason.  The  fault 
with  Nietzsche  is  his  utter  subjectivity.  A  personal 
reaction  becomes  a  philosophical  clue,  and  that  clue 
is  worked  and  amplified  until  it  becomes  a  whole 
cluster  of  suggestions. 

To  draw  up  a  list  of  such  personal  clues  and  to 
trace  their  work  in  the  upbuilding  of  his  philosophy 
would  be  a  diiEficult  matter.  But  some  at  least 
may  be  hinted  at:  the  convalescent's  dread  of 
disease;  an  abnormal  sense  of  physical  cleanliness, 
to  which  Nietzsche  himself  attributes  his  distaste 
for  extreme  democracy;  self-esteem;  a  craving  for 
the  picturesque,  the  orderly  and  the  rhythmic;  and 
an  intense  interest,  not  in  the  world  outside,  but 
in  his  own  impressions  and  his  responses  to  that 
world.  In  the  Antichrist,  in  the  pamphlets  against 
Wagner,  and   in    many  of   his   earlier  books  there 


192  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

are  passages  in  which  this  personal,  subjective, 
impressionistic  nature  of  his  philosophy  is  quite 
apparent.  An  emotional  note  will  be  struck — disgust 
or  distrust  or  enthusiasm  or  playfulness — and  then 
with  a  rush  a  whole  emotional  tone-structure  will 
make  its  appearance,  and,  threading  its  way  in  and 
out,  will  be  the  original  note;  everywhere  there  is 
a  strong  sense  of  self-expression,  of  intimacy,  of 
possession.  In  some  such  way  might  a  man  walk 
in  and  out  of  his  house  or  pass  from  room  to  room. 
Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  is  subjectively  dramatic. 
There  are,  of  course,  all  sorts  of  theories  and  doc- 
trines, of  these  the  doctrine  of  eternal  recurrence  is 
only  one.  Marriage  is  discussed,  so  is  war;  we  are 
told  of  the  Superman;  we  are  given  a  new  set  of  moral 
laws;  there  is  a  great  deal  of  social  criticism;  but 
every  one  of  these  theories  is  presented  in  terms  of 
the  most  personal  kind.  That  might  be  called  a 
poetic  artifice  if  the  emphasis  were  not  everywhere  on 
Zarathustra  as  a  responding  and  creating  personality 
— that  is,  on  self-drama.  We  follow  Zarathustra  on 
his  travels,  become  party  to  his  ideals,  commune  with 
him  and  struggle  with  his  doubts;  we  dance  with  him 
and  swoon  with  him;  we  climb  with  him  and  fall 
with  him.  His  speeches  impress  us  not  as  mirrors 
flashing  back  the  truth  of  things,  but  as  so  much 
*'  landscape  of  soul.''  The  landscape  of  the  book  it- 
self, the  sea,  the  mountains,  the  forest,  a  rich  meadow, 
an  oversea  Isle  of  the  Blest,  trees  against  lowering 


NIETZSCHE  193 

clouds,  a  deep  blue  expanse  of  sky,  is  impressionistic 
in  its  patchiness  and  in  its  symbolism  of  varying 
moods. 

One  of  Nietzsche's  finest  bits  of  self-analysis  is  a 
passage  in  Ecce  Homo  in  which  he  refers  to  the  invol- 
untary character  of  the  imagery  in  Thus  Spake  Zara- 
thustra,  and  to  his  sense  of  rhythm.  These  clues 
when  followed  up  will  yield  two  further  traits  in  the 
portrait  of  the  artist-philosopher.    The  passage  reads : 

'^  Has  any  one  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century 
an  understanding  of  what  poets  of  virile  ages  called 
inspiration?  If  not,  I  shall  describe  it.  With  the 
least  bit  of  superstition  remaining,  one  could  not 
but  feel  oneself  mere  idea,  mere  incarnation,  mere 
mouthpiece,  mere  medium  of  supernatural  powers. 
The  word  revelation  marks  the  facts.  All  of  a  sudden 
with  wonderful  sureness  and  fineness  something  be- 
comes visible,  audible,  something  which  shakes  us  to 
the  depths  and  topples  us  over.  One  hears,  and  yet 
one  does  not  seek;  one  takes  and  yet  one  does  not 
ask  who  it  is  that  gives;  a  thought  flashes  like  light- 
ning: inevitably,  unhesitatingly — never  did  I  have 
any  choice.  An  ecstasy  of  fearful  tension — slackened 
occasionally  by  a  stream  of  tears — with  a  step  now 
stormy,  now  slow;  an  utter  losing  oneself,  and  the 
clear  consciousness  of  innumerable  electric  currents 
and  tremblings  to  one's  very  toes;  a  depth  of  happi- 
ness in  which  what  is  most  painful  and  most  gloomy 
is  not  asked  for  as  a  contrast,  but  demanded  with  a 
challenge  as  a  necessary  color  within  such  an  abun- 
dance of  light;    a  wide-spanning  feeling  of  rhythm 


194  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

and  form!  It  sometimes  occurs  to  me  that  the 
demand  for  a  sense  of  rhythm  of  wide  span  prac- 
tically measures  the  strength  of  inspiration  and  at 
the  same  time  counteracts  its  pressure.  All  these 
things  come  to  pass  involuntarily,  emphatically  so, 
but  they  come  with  a  hurricane  of  a  feeling  of  freedom, 
independence,  power,  divinity.  Most  strange  of  all 
is  the  involuntary  character  of  the  imagery,  of  the 
simile;  one  no  longer  knows  the  meaning  of  image  or 
simile:  everything  offers  itself  as  the  nearest,  the 
truest,  the  simplest  expression:  it  seems  as  though — 
to  speak  with  Zarathustra — all  things  came  and 
offered  themselves  as  similes." 

Much  of  the  imagery  in  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  is 
indeed  involuntary,  and  it  would  not  be  hard  to  give 
instance  after  instance.  In  some  of  the  more  rhap- 
sodic passages  there  seems  to  be  at  first  glance  only 
a  confusion  of  metaphors  among  which  Nietzsche's 
thought  goes  ricocheting  at  all  sorts  of  angles.  But 
one  glance  more  will  show  a  curious  orderliness  and 
a  curious  involuntariness  in  all  this  imagery.  An 
image  suggests  itself,  something  in  that  image  gives 
a  stealthy  clue  to  some  other  image;  above  the  sur- 
face there  seems  to  be  a  rough  break,  but  below 
there  is  the  continuity  of  mood.  In  the  section  Of  the 
Sublime  Zarathustra  compares  his  mind  to  the  depth 
of  the  sea.  Out  of  this  general  image  there  breaks 
for  Nietzsche  the  image  of  the  silence  of  the  deep. 
But  he  is  hurried  on.  What!  so  silent,  and  swarming 
with  sea  monsters.   Monsters — prey — booty — hunter: 


NIETZSCHE  195 

the  scene  has  shifted,  Zarathustra  sees  a  hunter  com- 
ing out  of  the  forest;  slung  over  his  shoulder  is  his 
booty,  a  bagful  of  ugly  truths.  Hunter — forest — wild 
animals:  what  if  this  hunter  has  not  killed  the  wild 
animal  in  himself?  This  may  serve  as  an  example 
of  such  an  involuntary  development  of  imagery.  It 
cannot  be  called  a  literary  device,  for  while  it  is  most 
noticeable  in  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  it  is  present  in 
Nietzsche's  other  books.  And  what  of  the  evidence 
furnished  by  those  emotional  clusters  of  thought 
which  were  interpreted  as  forms  of  the  subject- 
ively dramatic? 

Not  always,  however,  is  it  the  wire  of  a  single 
mood  or  a  complex  of  moods  that  controls  the  leaps 
and  antics  of  Nietzsche's  imagery;  sometimes  there 
is  an  almost  purely  verbal  continuity.  The  pun  is, 
of  course,  one  of  the  simplest  forms  of  such  con- 
tinuity, and  Nietzsche,  like  many  great  men,  can  on 
occasion  be  an  atrocious  punster.  But  apart  from 
that,  all  kinds  of  verbal  analogies  and  contrasts  play 
a  conscious  and  often  an  unconscious  part  in  the 
development  of  his  thought;  and  it  is  the  verbal 
form  that  controls  the  mood  and  makes  it  play  to  its 
lead.    Here  is  an  example: 

"  Euer  Eheschliessen:  seht  zu,  dass  es  nicht  ein 
schlechtes  Schliessen  sei!  Ihr  schlosset  zu  schnell: 
so  folgt  daraus — Ehebrechen! 

Und    besser    noch    Ehebrechen    als    Ehe-biegen, 


196  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

Ehe-liigen!     So  sprach  mir  ein  Weib,  '  wohl  brach 
ich  die  Ehe,  aber  zuerst  brach  die  Ehe — mich! '  " 

Another  example: 

''  Warum  so  weich,  so  weichend  und  nachgebend?  " 

Another: 

"  Schatzen  ist  Schaffen:  hort  es,  ihr  Schaffenden! 
Schatzen  selber  ist  aller  geschatzten  Dinge  Schatz 
und  Kleinod." 

Still  another: 

"  — Wie?  Ward  die  Welt  nicht  eben  voUkommen? 
Rund  und  reif?  Oh  des  goldenen  runden  Reifs — 
wohin  fliegt  er  wohl?  " 

Nietzsche's  sense  of  rhythm  gives  quite  as  good  a 
clue  to  the  artistic  in  his  philosophy  as  such  invol- 
untary imagery  yields.  German  is  not  a  very 
rhythmical  or  flexible  language;  it  is  a  squatting 
language;  it  sits  down  heavily  and  crushes  out  all 
movement,  all  lively  and  subtle  play  of  mood.  But 
Nietzsche  is  not  a  squatting  philosopher.  His  thought 
is  all  movement,  on  the  surface  and  below  the  surface, 
and  of  the  utmost  variety.  It  is  quite  as  charac- 
teristic of  him  as  it  is  of  Rodin.  Rodin,  with 
a  testing  and  tempting  courage  which  Nietzsche 
would  have  praised,  seeks  to  express  in  his  varied 
and  restless  figures  something  of  the  stress  and  strife 
which  are  at  the  heart  of  things;  Nietzsche's  thought 
plays  in  and  out  and  all  about  certain  ideas,  such  as 


NIETZSCHE  197 

will  to  power,  eternal  recurrence,  life  as  a  fighter^s 
game  and  gamble,  which  are  in  and  of  themselves 
dramatic.  His  is  a  jumping  and  throbbing  and 
dancing  philosophy;  it  leads  him  and  his  reader  many 
a  merry  dance.  It  offers  little  in  the  way  of  neat 
solutions,  less  in  the  way  of  consistent,  final  results; 
but  it  does  give  a  wealth  of  rhythms,  imaginative  and 
intellectual,  expressed  in  language  of  great  force  and 
span.  Nietzsche's  name  has  played  a  prominent  part 
in  recent  war  talk,  but  it  is  a  mistake,  and  a  serious 
one,  to  think  of  him  as  interested  in  war  from  the 
point  of  view  of  political  self-preservation  or  of  some 
great  idea  of  national  expansion.  Nietzsche's  ex- 
periences in  the  Franco-Prussian  war  were  barren 
of  results,  judging  from  his  books  and  letters,  and  he 
seems  to  have  been  untouched  by  the  new  and  mo- 
mentous ideal  of  a  united  Germany.  His  true  inter- 
est lay  not  in  war,  but  in  the  psychology  of  fighting, 
in  the  rhythm  of  blows  given  and  taken. 

It  would  be  difficult,  perhaps  impossible,  to  sepa- 
rate form  and  substance  or  to  distinguish  between 
Nietzsche's  conscious  use  of  rhythm  and  the  sub- 
conscious, vibratory  character  of  his  philosophy. 
But  it  would  be  worth  thp  attempt.  Here  and  there 
it  can  be  done  easily. 

Nietzsche  has  much  to  say  of  the  resentful  nature 
of  the  little  man;  ressentiment  is  one  of  his  favorite 
words;    he  interprets  asceticism  and  certain  moral 


198  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

and  religious  beliefs  as  the  belittling,  resentful  mal- 
ice of  the  weak.  There  are  passages  in  that  rather 
sober  and  somewhat  pedantic  book,  The  Genealogy 
of  Morals,  and  in  The  Antichrist,  in  which  this  phil- 
osophy of  resentment  takes  on  the  color  and  rhythm 
of  resentment.  There  is  a  curious  emotional  rest- 
lessness, a  staccato  succession  of  adjectives  of  abuse, 
an  ill-bred  and  very  ingenious  way  of  twisting  things, 
a  bit  of  a  sneer  and  an  occasional  shrug,  together 
with  a  very  large  fear  lest  his  thrusts  fail  to  strike 
home — facts,  all  of  them,  of  great  interest  to  the 
psychologist  of  resentment.  There  is  all  the  dif- 
ference in  the  world  between  such  badgering,  pound- 
ing and  grinding  rhythms  and  the  emotionally  sus- 
tained, ample,  generous,  undulatory  rhythms  of  such 
passages  in  The  Gay  Science,  The  Dawn  of  Day,  and 
Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  as  preach  the  Superman  and 
the  love  of  to-morrow. 

Nietzsche's  sense  of  rhythm  also  plays  a  part, 
even  if  a  minor  one,  in  his  theory  of  eternal  recur- 
rence. He  is  fond  of  refrain  and  of  a  sort  of  circle 
pattern  rhythm.  In  the  last  paragraph  of  The  Will 
to  Power  he  gives  his  theory  in  language  which  allows 
one  to  feel  the  stress  of  will,  and  which  by  a  balanced 
alternation  of  clauses  and  phrases  suggests  the  very 
rhythm  of  recurrence.  The  parallelism  between 
theory  and  subconscious  motifs  is  here  perfect.  The 
same  rhythmic  equivalent  is  given  in  such  swaying, 
recurrent  movement  and  imagery  as  this: 


NIETZSCHE  199 

"  In  dein  Auge  schaute  ich  jiingst,  oh  Leben:  Gold 
sah  ich  in  deinem  Nacht-Auge  blinken, — mein  Herz 
stand  still  vor  dieser  Wollust: 

"  — einen  goldenen  Kahn  sah  ich  blinken  auf  nachti- 
gen  Gewassern,  einen  sinkenden,  trinkenden,  wieder 
winkenden  goldenen  Schaukel-Kahn! 

*^  Nach  meinem  Fusse,  dem  tanzwiithigen,  warfst 
du  einen  Blick,  einen  lachenden  fragenden  schmelzen- 
den  Schaukel-Blick:'' 

One  further  illustration!  In  a  passage  in  Thus 
Spake  Zarathustra  called  Noontide  we  are  given  the 
rhythm  of  sleep,  not  of  a  deep,  even-pulsing,  dream- 
less sleep,  but  of  a  Hght  sleep  with  changing  dream 
pictures  and  dream  rhythms,  with  uneasy  stirrings 
and  drowsy  feeUngs  of  sinking—linking  into  ^Hhe 
well  of  Eternity." 

'*  Like  a  graceful  breeze,  invisible,  dancing  on  the 
smooth  floor  of  the  sea.  Sleep  dances  on  me — lightly, 
lightly  as  a  feather. 

**  Not  an  eyeUd  of  mine  does  he  close;  he  allows  my 
soul  to  remain  awake.  Of  a  truth  he  is  light,  Kght 
as  a  feather. 

*'  He  persuades  me,  I  know  not  how;  he  touches  me 
faintly  with  flattering  hand;  he  forces  me;  he  forces 
my  soul  to  relax. 

''  The  slightest,  the  stiilest,ithe  lightest— the  rustling 
of  a  lizard,  a  breath,  a  lightning-like  movement,  a 
moment — a  slight  thing  like  these  is  the  best  happi- 
ness.   Hush! 

''What  is  happening   to  me?    Hark!    Has  Time 


200  ARTISTS  AND  THINKERS 

taken  wing?    Am  I  not  falling — hark!  falling  into 
the  well  of  Eternity?  '' 

Here  is  the  artist  Nietzsche  at  his  best,  catching  as 
it  were  the  life  of  silence  in  its  free  and  varied  swing. 
And  what  of  the  philosopher  Nietzsche?  Is  there 
not  here  a  very  large  part  of  his  secret?  One  might 
prefer  the  clear,  white  light  of  truth,  but  one  cannot 
help  being  struck  with  the  colorfulness  of  this  pris- 
matic philosophy.  One  cannot  help  seeing  the  artist 
in  the  philosopher,  an  artist  of  great  power  and  of  an 
original  stamp.  Part  of  his  quality  may  be  caught 
by  calling  him  warm  and  subjectively  dramatic,  an 
unconscious  exploiter  of  moods  and  dancer  to  many 
rhythms,  a  visualizer  and  vitalizer  of  contrasts  of 
movement,  of  struggle.  Such  phrases  may  mean 
little  or  they  may  mean  much:  it  all  depends  on  how 
much  backing  they  have  in  the  way  of  an  analysis  of 
Nietzsche's  philosophy.  As  they  stand  they  cer- 
tainly do  not  exhaust  the  artistic  significance  of  that 
philosophy — it  is  too  complex  for  that — but  they  do 
give  something  of  its  tang, 


•f. 


m 


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14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWID 

LOAN  DEPT. 

TTiis  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
.,^»W«  are  subjea  to  immediate  recaU. 


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subject   to    recall    alio  General  Library    . 

D  2li-60m-3,'65  UnlTCisity  of  California 
Berkeley 


LD  2lA-60m-3,'65 
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